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LIBERTATE 


THE   ROMANTIC   STORY  of 
the    PURITAN    FATHERS 


AND  THEIR  FOUNDING  OF  NEW  BOSTON 

AND  THE  MASSACHUSETTS 

BAY  COLONY 


BY  ALBERT  C.  ADDISON 


THE     ROMANTIC     STORY     OF 

THE    MAYFLOWER    PILGRIMS 

AND  ITS  PLACE  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  TO-DAY 

NET  $2.00 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 
THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 
AND  THEIR  FOUNDING  OF  NEW  BOSTON 
AND  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  BAY  COLONY 
NET  $2.50 


L.   C.    PAGE    &    COMPANY 
53  Beacon  Street      ::      ::     Boston,  Mass. 


I 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Parish  Register 

SIGNATURE  OF  JOHN  COTTON,  1620 


THE 

ROMANTIC  STORY 

OF  THE  PURITAN 

FATHERS 


AND  THEIR  FOUNDING  OF  NEW  BOSTON 
AND  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  BAY  COLONY 
TOGETHER  WITH  SOME  ACCOUNT  OF  THE 
CONDITIONS  WHICH  LED  TO  THEIR 
DEPARTURE  FROM  OLD  BOSTON  AND 
THE  NEIGHBOURING  TOWNS  IN  ENGLAND 


BY 


ALBERT  G.  ADDISON 


AUTHOR    OF    "  THE    ROMANTIC    8TOBT    OF    THE    MAYFLOWER    PILGRIMS 
AHD    ITS    PLACE    IN    THE    LIFE    OF    TO-DAY,"    ETC. 


WITH  NUMEROUS  ORIGINAL  ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON 
L.   C.  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

MDCCCCXII 


COPYRIGHT,    IQI2,    BY 
L.  C.  PAGE&COMPANY 

(INCORPORATED) 


ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


FIRST   IMPRESSION,    SEPTEMBER,    IQI2 


THE-PLIMPTON-PRESS-NORWOOD-MASS-U'S'A 


43 


55 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

PREFACE ix 

THE  MAYFLOWER  PILGRIMS 3 

THE  PURITAN  EXODUS — A  BOSTON  ADVEN- 
TURE—  JOHN  COTTON  17 

A  CONTEMPORARY  PICTURE  OF  COTTON — 
His  PREACHING:  "DEATH  IN  THE  POT"  — 
QUAINT  SERVICES  IN  BOSTON  CHURCH 

AN  EPISODE  OF  BOSTON  HISTORY — MUTILA- 
TION OF  THE  TOWN'S  MACES — ATHERTON 
HOUGH  AS  IMAGE-BREAKER  .... 

CHURCH  LIFE  IN  BOSTON — THE  LINCOLN- 
SHIRE MOVEMENT —  FAITH  AND  FLIGHT  OF 
COTTON 67 

OLD  BOSTON  IN  COTTON'S  DAY  ....       85 

COTTON'S  BOSTON  MEN — THE  NEW  LIFE 
O'ER  SEAS — PERSECUTIONS  AND  PUNISH- 
MENTS   103 

THE  BOSTONS  AND  "THE  SCARLET  LETTER " .      135 

PIONEERS  OF  EMPIRE — LINKS  WITH  OLD 
BOSTON — THE  PURITAN  STOCK  .  .  .  149 

BOSTON:   EAST  AND  WEST 181 

COTTON'S  SUCCESSORS  AT  ST.  BOTOLPH'S — 
THE  CHURCH'S  LATER  HISTORY — PIL- 
GRIM SHRINE 


I. 
II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 
VII. 

VIII. 
IX. 


2040196 


"The  Puritan's  task  was  to  conquer  a  continent; 
not  merely  to  overrun  it,  but  to  settle  it,  to  till  it,  to  build 
upon  it  a  bigb  industrial  and  social  lije;  and,  while 
engaged  in  the  rough  work  of  taming  the  shaggy  wil- 
derness, at  that  very  time  also  to  lay  deep  the  immov- 
able foundations  of  our  whole  American  system  of 
civil,  political,  and  religious  liberty  achieved  through 
the  orderly  process  of  law." 

EX-PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT 
Address  at  Provincetown,  August,  I 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


John  Cotton Frontispiece 

River  View,  Boston,  England.  —  Ancient  Warehouses  of  the 

Merchants    of   St.    Mary's    Guild,    Spring    Lane,    Boston, 

England 6 

Deed  Closet,  Closed  and  Open,  in  the  Old  Council  Chamber, 

Guildhall,  Boston,  England.  —  Old  Treasury  Chest,  Closed 

and  Open,  Guildhall,  Boston,  England 12 

Grammar  School,  Boston,  England,  erected  in  1567-1568.  — 

Interior  of  Grammar  School,  Boston,  England  ....  14 

John  Endicott , 18 

Arrival  of  Winthrop's  Colony  in  Boston  Harbour  ....  22 
John  Eliot  preaching  to  the  Indians  ....  ^  ...  24 

Sir  Richard  Saltonstall  28 

Record  of  the  Appointment  of  John  Cotton  as  Vicar,  June  24, 

1612 32 

Statue  of  St.  Botolph,  mutilated  in  1620  by  Atherton  Hough  .  62 
Tattershall  Castle.  —  Sempringham  Manor  House;  Modern 

Residence  on  the  Old  Site 73 

Roger  Williams 74 

Entry  of  May  28,  1613.  —  Entry  of  April  22,  1614  .  .  .  79 
The  Resignations  of  John  Cotton,  Atherton  Hough,  and 

Thomas  Leverett 80 

St.  Botolph' s,  Boston,  England 85 

South  Door  and  Porch  of  St.  Botolph's,  Boston,  England,  with 

Church  Library  above.  —  Church  Library,  St.  Botolph's, 

Boston,  England,  established  in  1635 87 

Altar  Tomb  of  Dame  Margery  Tilney.  —  Miserere  Seats  in 

the  Choir  Stalls 89 

The  Old  Vicarage,  Boston,  England,  occupied  by  John  Cotton. 

—  The  Old  Church  House,  Boston,  England 92 

vii 


m 

I 

71 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Record  of  the  Marriage  of  Thomas  Leverett  to  Anne  Fisher, 
1610.  —  Record  of  the  Admission  of  Thomas  Leverett  to  the 
Freedom  of  the  Borough,  January  18,  1618.  —  Record  of 
the  Election  of  Thomas  Leverett  to  the  Town  Council, 
March  7,  1620.  —  Record  of  the  Appointment  of  Thomas 

Leverett  as  Coroner,  May  i,  1624 105 

Record  by  which  Atherton  Hough  was  "made  free"  of  the 
Borough,  May  22,  1619.  —  Record  of  the  Election  of 
Atherton  Hough,  on  August  21,  1619,  to  the  Common  Coun- 
cil. —  Record  of  the  Marriage  of  Atherton  Hough  to  Eliza- 
beth Whittingham,  1618 106 

Record  of  the  Election  of  Atherton  Hough  as  Mayor,  May  I, 

1628 108 

Record  of  the  Election  of  Richard  Bellingham  as  Recorder, 

November  7,  1625 no 

Signature  of  John  Whiting.  —  Skirbeck  Church  of  which 
Samuel  Whiting  was  Rector,  1625-1636.  —  Record  of  the 
Marriage  of  Samuel  Whiting  to  Elizabeth  St.  John,  1629  .  112 

John  Wilson 116 

Hugh  Peters 122 

Harry  Vane 124 

The  Mud  and  Thatched  Hut  which  served  as  the  Original 

First  Church  in  Boston,  Mass 137 

House  of  Richard  Bellingham,  Chelsea,  Mass 138 

Simon  Bradstreet 141 

Cotton  Mather 152 

Increase  Mather 154 

John  Winthrop 160 

John  Leverett 164 

Oliver  Cromwell 168 

The  First  Church,  Boston,  Mass 175 

Statue  of  Governor  John  Winthrop,  standing  outside  the  First 

Church,  Boston,  Mass 176 

The  Cotton  Memorial  in  the  First  Church,  Boston,  Mass.     .       178 
Interior  of  the  Cotton  Chapel,  St.  Botolph's,  Boston,  England. 
—  Reredos  placed  in  the  Cotton  Chapel  in  1907  ....      185 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


IX 


Trinity  Church,  Boston,  Mass.  —  Tracery  of  Ancient  Window 

removed  from  the  Chancel  of  St.  Botolph's,  Boston,  England  187 
Record  of  the  Marriage  of  John  Cotton  to  Sarah  Story  .      .  189 
Canon  Blenkin.  —  The  Pulpit  of  St.  Botolph's,  Boston,  Eng- 
land. —  Canon  Stephenson         196 

John    Cotton    Brooks.  —  Bishop    Phillips    Brooks.  —  Bishop 

Lawrence 201 

Relics  of  the  Struggle  for  Civil  and  Religious  Liberty  .      .      .  210 
Tablets  in   the   First  Church,   Boston,   Mass.,   to  Sir  John 

Leverett,  John  Endicott,  and  Sir  Henry  Vane 221 

Five  of  the  Miserere  Seats  in  St.  Botolph's,  Boston,  England  .  222 

The  Guildhall,  Boston,  England,  from  South  Square     .      .      .  232 
Record  of  First  Meeting  of  the  Boston  Corporation  under 

Henry  VIIFs  Charter,  on  June  I,  1545 234 

The  Old  Council  Chamber,  Guildhall,  Boston,  England .      .     .  236 


PREFACE 


I ||  'HE  year  of  grace  1909  marked  the  Sex- 
centenary of  the  founding  of  Boston 
Church.  Six  long  centuries  had  rolled 
their  course  since  the  first  stone  of  the  giant 
steeple  was  laid  by  the  great-grandmother  of 
Anne  Boleyn,  mother  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
The  site  was  an  older  church  of  St.  Botolph, 
and  the  foundations  of  the  colossal  tower  were 
sunk  deeper  down  than  the  bed  of  the  river 
Witham  by  which  it  stands.  The  building  of 
the  "Minster  of  the  Fens"  continued  during 
the  reigns  of  six  sovereigns  and  occupied  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years.  On  through  the  cen- 
turies the  church  has  been  a  landmark,  not 
only  for  the  flat  country  and  winding  water- 
ways stretching  around,  and  fishermen  and 
mariners  upon  the  sea,  but  in  the  history  un- 
folded in  two  hemispheres.  It  is  a  noble  old 
pile  to-day,  and  about  it  cluster  many  hallowed 
memories. 

That  great  tower  of  St.  Botolph's  has  in  its 
time  looked  down  upon  some  strangely  moving 
spectacles.  It  has  witnessed  the  passing  of  events 
pregnant  with  the  shaping  of  human  destinies. 
Midway  in  the  life  of  the  church  came  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers  to  Boston.  That  was  in  1607. 
Here  they  were  imprisoned.  Here  at  that 
time  germinated  the  wide-spreading  movements 


XII 


PREFACE 


out  of  which  sprang  the  New  England  States. 
From  the  coast  to  the  north,  hard  by,  the  Pil- 
grims escaped  next  year  to  Holland,  and  there 
followed  the  sailing  of  the  little  Mayflower  and 
the  planting  of  New  Plymouth,  one  of  the  most 
daring  and  romantic  and  fruitful  adventures 
in  the  annals  of  the  race. 

Now  set  in,  as  the  result  of  happenings  in 
Lincolnshire,  the  Puritan  emigration  which  took 
out  to  the  American  continent  those  sturdy 
men  from  Old  Boston  and  the  neighbourhood 
who  gave  to  the  New  Boston  its  name  and 
helped  to  build  up  the  Massachusetts  Settle- 
ments. It  was  a  grand,  if  hazardous,  enter- 
prise on  which  these  pioneers  embarked.  We 
know  how  it  was  realised.  Pilgrim  and  Puri- 
tan alike  had  a  hand  in  the  work  accomplished. 
What  the  Pilgrim  began  the  Puritan  carried 
forward  to  a  full  development.  Well  may 
Gainsborough  and  its  vicinity,  and,  more  par- 
ticularly, Boston  of  the  Lincolnshire  centres, 
be  proud  of  their  share  in  the  achievement; 
and  well  may  these  historic  homes  of  a  mighty 
race,  the  mother  Boston  especially,  fill  the 
warm  place  they  do  in  American  hearts. 

After  the  Puritan  exodus  Old  Boston  con- 
tinued to  be  closely  identified  with  the  stirring 
episodes  of  the  seventeenth  century;  and, 
amid  her  memorials  of  a  glorious  past,  she  looks 
back  with  pride  on  the  stand  she,  in  the  dark 
days,  made  for  liberty.  The  pages  which  fol- 
low relating  to  the  town  are  the  outcome  of 


PREFACE 


XIII 


quiet  research  conducted  for  the  most  part  on 
the  spot.  Forgotten  corners  have  been  ex- 
plored, official  papers  overhauled,  records  and 
registers  scanned  and  photographed,  and  the 
materials  in  this  way  collected  serve  to  clothe 
with  a  warmer  human  interest  the  dry  bones  of 
such  skeleton  chronicles  as  have  existed.  Much 
care  has  been  bestowed  in  collecting  and  arrang- 
ing the  unique  series  of  illustrations  accompany- 
ing the  work,  which  includes,  among  other 
things  important  to  the  subject,  facsimiles 
produced  for  the  first  time  of  official  entries 
concerning  John  Cotton  and  his  Boston  men 
—  afterwards  prominent  figures  in  New  Eng- 
land life  —  their  marriages,  appointments  as 
Vicar,  Mayor,  Freemen,  Town  Councillors,  Cor- 
oner, and  Recorder,  the  appreciations  of  Cot- 
ton's services  to  the  town,  and  the  significant 
resignations  of  himself  and  others  who  shared 
his  enforced  exile. 

Fresh'  leaves  are  turned  in  the  book  of  Old 
Boston's  history  which  shed  a  fuller  and  truer 
light  upon  the  actions  of  the  times.  Nothing, 
for  instance,  could  exceed  in  value  and  inter- 
est the  detailed  account  here  given,  drawn  from 
a  contemporary  source  still  fortunately  acces- 
sible to  us  in  the  dusty  ecclesiastical  archives 
of  the  county,  of  John  Cotton  as  he  was  when 
he  had  been  two  years  Vicar  of  Boston,  the 
nature  of  the  teaching  of  the  great  Puritan 
preacher,  and  the  character  of  the  services  of 
his  church. 


XIV 


PREFACE 


The  reader  is  presented  also  with  a  picture 
of  the  famed  Fen  borough  as  Cotton  knew  it, 
and  of  the  venerable  church  in  which  he  min- 
istered, as  it  stood  in  his  day.  Succeeding 
chapters  treat  of  the  new  life  o'er  seas,  its  frui- 
tion and  its  failures,  trials  and  tragedy.  The 
fortunes  of  the  Old  Boston  men  are  traced,  and 
some  peculiar  historical  parallels  and  associa- 
tions of  the  Bostons  noted.  Coming  down  to 
later  times  we  see  emphasised  the  ties  of  kin- 
ship subsisting  between  the  two  places  and  the 
impressions  created  by  certain  notable  Ameri- 
can pilgrimages  made  to  Old  Boston.  Finally 
we  learn  something  of  Cotton's  successors  at 
St.  Botolph's  and  the  chequered  history  of  the 
church  and  its  affairs.  The  story  is  one  of 
deep  interest  to  the  two  Bostons,  and,  if  the 
telling  of  it  here  should  happily  help  to  draw 
them  yet  closer  together  in  the  bonds  of  affec- 
tion and  goodwill,  the  task  entailed  will  not 
have  been  discharged  in  vain. 

BOSTON,  LINCOLNSHIRE 
June,  1912 


I 


THE   MAYFLOWER   PILGRIMS 


St.  Botolpb's  Town  !    Hither  across  the  plains 
And  Jens  of  Lincolnshire,  in  garb  austere, 
There  came  a  Saxon  monk,  and  founded  here 
A  Priory,  pillaged  by  marauding  Danes, 

So  that  thereof  no  vestige  now  remains; 
Only  a  name,  that,  spoken  loud  and  clear, 
And  echoed  in  another  hemisphere, 
Survives  the  sculptured  walls  and  painted  panes. 

St.  Botolpb's  Town !  Far  over  leagues  of  land 
And  leagues  of  sea  looks  forth  its  noble  tower, 
And  far  around  the  chiming  bells  are  beard; 

So  may  that  sacred  name  forever  stand 
A  landmark,  and  a  symbol  of  the  power 
That  lies  concentred  in  a  single  word. 

LONGFELLOW 


THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  of 
the  PURITAN  FATHERS 

I 

THE  MAYFLOWER  PILGRIMS 

This  is  the  place: 

Let  me  review  the  scene 
And  summon  from  the  sbadouy  Past 

The  Jorms  that  once  have  been. 

— LONGFELLOW,  A  Gleam  oj  Sunshine 

]  NEW  places  in  England  possess  a  more 
impressive  history  than  Boston,  in  Lin- 
colnshire. The  records  of  this  ancient 
township  go  back  to  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
century,  when  Botolf,  a  pious  Saxon  monk, 
allowed  to  settle  here  by  Ethelmund,  King  of  the 
East  Angles,  founded  a  monastery  on  an  "un- 
tilled  place  where  none  dwelt,"  named  Icanho  or 
Ox  Island,  "a  wilderness  unfrequented  by  men,"  * 
the  St.  Botolph's  Town  of  later  years.  Towards 
the  close  of  the  ninth  century  came  the  invad- 
ing Danes,  with  wasting  fire  and  sword,  and 
the  saintly  Botolf  and  his  following  and  the 
rude  structures  they  had  raised  were  swept 
away. 


1  Capgrave ;  who  adds,  "  but  possessed  of  devils,  whose  phan- 
tastfcal  illusions  were  to  be  expelled  thence,  and  a  religious  con- 
versation of  pious  men  to  be  introduced." 


4     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

Next  the  Normans  — whom  the  Saxon  fenmen 
were  the  last  to  resist1 — set  up  a  small  stone 
church,  and  this  in  turn  made  way  for  the  present 
noble  edifice,  commenced  on  the  same  site  in  1309 
and  carried  over  and  around  the  older  church, 
which  was  not  removed  until  the  hew  building 
was  completed.  The  story  is  that  the  founda- 
tions of  St.  Botolph's  Church  were  of  timber 
and  woolpacks.  This,  in  part,  is  no  doubt 
literally  true;  at  the  same  time  it  is  meant  to 
express,  in  metaphor,  that  the  trade  in  those 
commodities  produced  the  wealth  which  enabled 
the  people  to  erect  the  church.  But  no  mere 
material  prosperity  would  have  inspired  such  a 
design:  it  was  due  also  to  the  religious  enthu- 
siasm which  had  been  aroused  by  the  preaching 
of  the  Friars. 

After  the  Norman  Conquest,  Boston  entered 
upon  a  period  of  growing  prosperity  compared 
with  the  rest  of  England.  There  was  then  no 
surplus  population  to  be  employed  in  manu- 
facture. This  is  practically  the  position  of 
Canada  and  Australia  to-day.  The  chief  raw 
product  of  England  was  wool,  and  trade  con- 

1  Led  in  the  main  by  bold  Hereward,  "The  Last  of  the  English," 
who,  from  his  fastnesses  in  the  Fens,  for  a  time  defied  the  in- 
vaders. William  himself  at  last  undertook  to  break  up  the  Camp 
of  Refuge.  A  fleet  approached  from  The  Wash,  the  Isle  of  Ely 
was  invested,  and,  to  facilitate  operations,  Aldrath  Causeway  was 
repaired  to  the  southwest.  Hereward  escaped  the  slaughter,  and 
eventually  his  patrimony  was  restored  to  him.  This  was  the  last 
organised  resistance  to  the  Conquest.  The  story  is  told  with 
vigour  and  historical  fidelity  by  Charles  Kingsley  in  his  book 
"Hereward  the  Wake." 


PURITAN  FATHERS 


sisted  in  exporting  wool  and  importing  in  ex- 
change for  it  cloth  and  manufactured  goods 
and  articles  of  luxury.  Now  Lincolnshire  has 
always  been  a  county  famed  for  its  sheep,  and 
Boston  is  a  port  facing  towards  the  Nether- 
lands, which  was  the  great  manufacturing 
country.  At  this  period  Boston  was  as  Sydney 
now  is,  and  Ghent  and  Bruges  were  as  are  Leeds 
and  Bradford.  The  stream  of  trade  flowed  from 
the  Asiatic  regions  at  the  southeast  across 
Europe  to  Britain  in  the  northwest.  The  great 
commercial  cities  of  the  world  were  in  the  centre 
of  that  route,  in  Southern  Germany  and  North- 
ern Italy,  and  Boston  was  on  the  route.  Thus 
it  was  that  Boston  in  the  reign  of  John  —  who 
lost  his  baggage  in  the  neighbouring  Wash — 
ranked  next  to  London  as  the  second  port  in 
the  kingdom.  But  Boston's  prosperity  was 
highest  from  1300  to  1450,  the  period  during 
which  its  glorious  church  was  building.  Those 
were  the  days  of  the  Hanseatic  League,  which 
had  its  steelyard  and  staple  at  Boston.  Four 
friaries  were  established  in  the  town,  and  the 
numerous  mercantile  guilds  which  sprang  into 
existence  were  another  evidence  of  its  com- 
mercial growth. 

But  there  was  a  turn  of  the  tide.  England 
became  a  self-supporting  country  which  manu- 
factured its  own  raw  material;  such  towns  as 
Norwich  and  Worsted  took  the  place  once  held 
by  the  Flemish  cities,  and  the  Fen  port  was  no 
longer  wanted  for  the  export  of  wool.  While 


I 


6     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


ships  were  made  larger,  its  harbour  was  silted 
up;  Boston  was  a  decaying  town.  The  suc- 
cess of  the  Moslems  broke  up  the  old  overland 
trade  route  to  India,  and  the  attempt  to  find 
a  new  route  led  to  the  discovery  of  America. 
Instead  of  flowing  in  an  easterly  direction, 
the  main  stream  of  trade  was  across  the 
Atlantic  towards  the  west,  and  Liverpool  and 
Bristol  usurped  the  place  which  Boston  had 
once  held. 

And  so  the  glory  of  the  Boston  of  the  Middle 
Ages  departed.  The  Easterlings  and  their 
League,  the  steelyard  and  the  staple,  were  but 
a  memory;  and  the  friaries  and  the  mercantile 
guilds  went  the  way  of  the  rest.  Yet  Boston 
survived  the  loss  of  its  trade  and  of  institutions 
associated  with  its  mediaeval  activity  and  im- 
portance. Greater  things  were  reserved  for  it. 
Soon  it  was  to  be  redeemed  from  the  obscurity 
which  threatened  it  and  to  obtain  a  place  in 
world-history  by  reason  of  the  part  it  played  in 
the  peopling  of  New  England  and  its  share 
in  the  founding  of  the  American  States.  It  was 
in  the  period  of  the  great  upheaval  in  Church 
and  State  that  the  Lincolnshire  Boston  made  its 
impress  upon  the  pages  of  history. 

True,  in  the  centuries  which  followed,  Boston 
benefited  by  the  drainage  of  the  surrounding 
Fens  and  became  the  metropolis  of  a  wealthy 
agricultural  district  and  a  centre  of  distribution 
for  the  corn  trade.  Great  granaries  reared  them- 
selves on  the  banks  of  its  river,  and  in  still  more 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

RIVER  VIEW,  BOSTON,  ENGLAND 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

ANCIENT  WAREHOUSES  OF  THE  MERCHANTS  OF  ST.  MARY'S  GUILD, 
SPRING  LANE,  BOSTON,  ENGLAND 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


recent  times  it  came  to  have  docks  as  well  as  a 
harbour,  and  a  better  passage  to  the  sea,  and 
to  thrive  as  a  shipping  and  fishing  port  in  the 
realm  of  modern  industry. 

But  even  so  its  commercial  position  was  rela- 
tively less  important  than  that  of  the  old  days, 
and  its  title  to  a  wider  recognition  had  still  to 
rest  on  the  times  when,  having  ceased  to  export 
cargoes  of  wool  to  be  made  into  cloth  in  Hol- 
land, it  sent  forth  the  men  of  mark  who  made  the 
name  of  the  American  Boston,  and  incidentally 
the  fame  of  the  English  Boston. 

So  it  comes  about  that  the  history  of  Old 
Boston,  which  endures  in  the  eyes  of  men  and 
will  be  handed  on,  is  in  the  main  that  which 
clings  to  its  monumental  church  and  the  men 
who  worshipped  and  went  out  from  there,  and 
to  its  Puritan  associations  and  its  Pilgrim  Father 
shrines. 

In  a  remoter  sense  it  has  claims  in  the  same 
direction  which  are  not  without  interest.  With 
the  cause  of  religious  freedom  from  its  incep- 
tion onward  it  can  boast  of  certain  links.  Sir 
Thomas  Holland,  for  example,  holder  of  the 
ancient  manor  of  Estovening  at  Swineshead 
near  Boston,  married  the  Fair  Maid  of  Kent, 
afterwards  the  wife  of  Edward  the  Black  Prince 
and  mother  of  Richard  II,  whose  consort,  Anne 
of  Bohemia,  was  the  mother  of  the  Reformation 
in  England.  It  was  on  the  petition  of  Anne  that 
the  Guild  of  St.  Mary  at  Boston,  which  built 
the  Guildhall,  was  incorporated :  evidence  of  her 


8     THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


action  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  carved  head 
of  the  Queen  commemorating  it  on  the  miserere 
bracket  of  a  stall  in  the  church.  Boston  was 
the  maternal  home  of  Anne  Boleyn,  who  followed 
Anne  of  Bohemia  as  the  mother  of  the  Reforma- 
tion in  England.  To  Boston  also  belonged  the 
family  of  Thomas  Cromwell. 

The  accomplished  and  fascinating  Anne 
Boleyn,  who  married  Henry  VIII,  was  daughter 
of  Sir  Thomas  Boleyn,  who  had  married  a  sister 
of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk.  This  alliance  brought 
Sir  Thomas  into  touch  with  royalty  and  led  to 
the  presence  of  his  daughter  at  the  Court  of 
Queen  Catharine.  The  history  of  the  unfor- 
tunate Anne  is  a  melancholy  romance.  Her 
ancestress  was  that  Dame  Margery  Tilney  who 
laid  the  first  stone  of  Boston  steeple,  the  giant 
"Stump,"  in  1309.  "And  thereon  laid  shee  five 
pounds  sterling." l 

Thomas  Cromwell,  the  "Hammer  of  Monas- 
teries," was  son  of  Catherine,  sister  of  Sir  Richard 
Cromwell,  alias  Williams,  the  founder  of  the 
house  and  great-grandfather  of  Oliver  Crom- 
well, the  Protector.  Richard  Cromwell  was 
born  in  the  parish  of  Llanilsen,  and,  migrating 
to  Boston,  held  lands  at  Cowbridge,  so  named 
after  the  Cowbridge  family  in  Glamorganshire. 
The  Cromwells  and  the  Bouchiers  were  settled 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Boston  before  they  went 
down  to  Huntingdon  and  Essex.  Thomas  Crom- 
well was  a  clerk  in  an  English  factory  at  Antwerp 

1  Stukeley. 


THE   PURITAN  FATHERS    9 

when  he  engaged  in  a  remarkable  enterprise  for 
renewing  Pope  Julius'  "pardons"  to  Boston, 
the  facts  of  which  are  attested  by  John  Fox  in 
his  "Acts  and  Monuments."  ; -r 

Fox,  himself,  was  born  at  Boston  in  1517. 
He  lost  his  father  at  an  early  age,  and  when,  a 
convert  to  the  reformed  doctrines,  he  was  tried 
for  heresy  and  deprived  of  his  fellowship  of 
Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  he  was  disinherited 
by  his  stepfather,  Richard  Melton,  a  Romanist. 
Nothing  is  known  of  his  parents  except  that 
they  were  of  "respectable  rank"  in  Boston. 
The  name  occurs  some  half-dozen  times  in  the 
local  records  of  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  but  only  in  one  case,  that  of  "John 
Fox,  draper,"  can  a  family  connection  be  traced. 
The  spot  where  Fox  saw  the  light  was  a  passage 
at  the  angle  of  Peacock-lane,  behind  the  old 
Council  House,  on  the  site  of  which  in  later 
times  stood  the  Angel  hostelry  in  the  Market- 
place. 

But  these  things  by  the  way.  The  period 
which  concerns  us  here  is  that  time  of  tumult 
spoken  of  —  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Chiefly  we  have  to  do  with  the  Puri- 
tans of  the  church,  who  gave  the  New  Boston 
its  name;  but  first  we  must  say  a  little  about 
those  sturdy  dissenters  of  the  Gainsborough 
community  who,  fleeing  from  persecution,  left 
their  homes  in  the  North-Midland  villages, 
attempted  to  escape  by  sea  from  Boston,  suc- 
ceeded later  in  sailing  from  the  North  Lincoln- 


I 


io     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

shire  coast  down  the  Humber,  and  finally,  after 
their  sojourn  in  Holland,  led  the  way  out  to 
the  West  and  planted  the  germ  of  the  New 
England  Colonies.1 

Their  leaders  were  William  Brewster  of 
Scrooby,  the  devoted  elder  who  did  so  much 
for  his  brethren  throughout,  and  William  Brad- 
ford of  Austerfield,  a  younger  man,  afterwards 
Governor  Bradford  and  author  of  the  valuable 
manuscript  "History  of  Plymouth  Planta- 
tion." These  were  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1607  that  the  Pil- 
grims appeared  at  Boston  and  there  arranged 
for  a  passage  across  the  North  Sea.  Elder 
Brewster  preceded  them  and  hired  a  vessel,  in 
which  they  embarked  a  little  below  the  town, 
probably  near  where  Skirbeck  Church  stands 
on  the  north  bank  of  the  Witham.  But  the 
treacherous  shipmaster,  a  Dutchman,  betrayed 
them  to  the  officers  of  the  port  and  they  were 
promptly  arrested;  for,  be  it  remembered,  it 
was  a  crime  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  to  emigrate 
without  license.  Hurried  into  open  boats,  they 
were  stripped  and  robbed  of  their  belongings 
and  carried  into  Boston,  a  spectacle  for  the 
gathered  crowd,  and  then  thrown  into  prison. 
They  appear  to  have  been  kindly  treated  by  the 
magistrates,  who,  as  Bradford  tells  us,  "used 
them  courteously  and  showed  them  what  favour 
they  could,"  and  this  is  not  surprising,  for 

1  For  the  full  history  of  this  adventurous  emigration  see  "The 
Romantic  Story  of  the  Mayflower  Pilgrims,"  by  the  present  author. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS     n 

Puritan  sympathy  was  already  spreading  in  the 
town. 

After  a  month's  detention,  during  which  the 
Privy  Council  was  consulted  as  to  the  disposal 
of  them,  the  majority  of  the  prisoners  were  dis- 
charged and  sent  back  to  their  homes.  Seven 
of  the  leaders  were  kept  in  custody,  including 
Brewster,  who,  says  the  Plymouth  historian  of 
after  years,  "was  chief  of  those  that  were  taken 
at  Boston  and  suffered  the  greatest  loss."  At 
last  they  were  bound  over  to  the  assizes.  What 
happened  to  them  there  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing;  but  we  do  know  that,  in  the  autumn 
following,  they  made  a  second  and  more  suc- 
cessful attempt  and  got  away  from  the  Humber 
in  another  Dutchman's  ship,  at  a  point  on  the 
Lincolnshire  shore  above  Grimsby.  Even  then 
they  were  surprised  by  armed  men,  and  some 
in  the  confusion  were  left  behind;  but  eventu- 
ally all  assembled  at  Amsterdam,  whence  they 
moved  on  to  Leyden,  where  they  stayed  eleven 
peaceful  years,  till  the  summer  of  1620,  when, 
determined  to  form  an  English-speaking  colony 
of  their  own,  they  made  the  historic  voyage  out 
west  in  the  little  Mayflower.  They  reached 
Cape  Cod  a  hundred  strong  on  November  21 
and  a  month  later  going  ashore  at  Plymouth,  so 
named  in  honour  of  their  last  place  of  call,  the 
English  Plymouth.  Here,  after  losing  many  of 
their  number  by  cold,  famine,  and  sickness,  the 
heroic  band  established  a  settlement  whose 
noble  future  they  could  never  have  dreamt  of 


12     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


in  those  first  days  of  struggle  with  hardship  and 
adversity. 

There  is  much  in  Old  Boston  still  to  remind 
us  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  First  we  have  the 
ancient  Guildhall,  built  by  the  Guild  of  St. 
Mary  towards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
Here,  in  the  basement,  are  still  to  be  seen  two 
of  the  dark  and  dismal  cells  in  which  Brewster 
and  his  companions  in  search  of  freedom  were 
confined,1  before  they  were  brought  to  the  Hall 
to  be  taken  before  the  justices  in  the  court-room 
above,  reached  by  a  winding  wooden  staircase, 
part  of  which  remains,  and  a  trap-door  cut  in 
the  floor  at  the  top!  At  other  times  they  were 
presumably  accommodated  in  the  old  Town  Gaol 
then  standing  in  the  Market-place,  but  long  ago 
pulled  down.  On  the  walls  of  the  upper  room, 
with  its  open  roof  and  heavy  oak  beams,  may  be 
read  the  table  of  Boston's  Mayors  since  1545, 
when  the  town  received  its  charter  of  incorpora- 
tion. Leading  from  it  is  the  quaint  old  Council 
Chamber,  used  after  I554,2  when  the  property 
of  the  defunct  Guilds  was  granted  to  the  Corpora- 
tion by  Philip  and  Mary,  down  to  1835,  w^tn 
its  empty  labelled  archives  hidden  behind  beauti- 
fully carved  folding  doors,  and  a  painting  of  Sir 
Joseph  Banks,  once  Recorder  of  Boston,  hang- 
ing on  its  wainscotted  walls.  In  the  court-room 

1  As  far  back  as  1552  it  was  ordered  that  the  kitchens  under 
the  Hall  and  the  chambers  over  them  should  be  prepared  for  a 
prison  and  a  dwelling-house  for  one  of  the  Serjeants. 

2  In   1583   the  inner  chamber   of  the   Hall   was   repaired    and 
"made  strong  for  a  Council  House."  —  Corporation  Records. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


justice  continued  to  be  administered  by  the 
borough  justices  and  the  quarter  sessions,  till 
nearly  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
but  the  fittings  were  not  removed  until  1878. 
There  is  a  larger  apartment  in  the  fore  part  of 
the  Hall,  with  a  minstrels'  gallery  and  a  hand- 
some Gothic  window  containing  fragments  of 
the  original  coloured  glass.  Here  in  the  old 
days  were  eaten  the  civic  banquets  prepared 
in  the  spacious  kitchens  beside  the  Pilgrim  cells, 
and  the  huge  open  fireplaces,  capacious  coppers, 
and  monster  spits  bear  mute  and  chiding  witness 
to  the  festive  prodigality  of  an  unreformed 
Corporation. 

Leaving  the  Guildhall  we  soon  reach  the 
Grammar  School,  built  forty  years  before  the 
Pilgrims  came  to  Boston,  standing  in  the  old 
mart-yard  in  South  End,  wherein  for  centuries 
was  held  the  great  annual  fair  of  St.  Botolph's. 
Behind  the  Grammar  School,  just  across  the 
fields,  is  another  landmark  of  Old  Boston, 
Hussey  Tower,  all  that  is  left  of  the  stately  home 
of  Lord  Hussey,  chief  butler  of  England  under 
Henry  VIII,  beheaded  at  Lincoln  in  1537  for 
favouring  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace.  The  pris- 
oners of  1607,  skirting  St.  John's  Church,  already 
a  partial  ruin,  would,  on  their  way  back  into 
the  town,  be  within  a  stone's  throw  of  these 
Hussey  walls,  and  the  old  mart-yard  which  they 
passed  close  by  must  have  echoed  to  the  voices 
of  the  mob  which  clattered  at  the  heels  of  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers.  Above  all,  over  the  winding 


i4     THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 

river,  with  its  lofty  granaries  and  busy  wharves, 
looms  the  great  gray  tower  of  the  town's  church, 
on  which  the  eyes  of  the  Pilgrims  doubtless 
rested  with  the  admiring  wonder  that  fills  all 
men  who  gaze  upon  it  at  the  present  day. 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

GRAMMAR  SCHOOL,  BOSTON,  ENGLAND,  ERECTED  IN  1567-1568 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

INTERIOR  OF  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL,  BOSTON,  ENGLAND 


THE   PURITAN    EXODUS  — A   BOSTON 
ADVENTURE  — JOHN   COTTON 


Looking  to  the  distant  future,  I  do  not  think  that  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Zincke  takes  an  exaggerated  view  when  be 
says:  "All  other  series  oj  events  —  as  that  which  re- 
sulted in  the  culture  oj  mind  in  Greece,  and  that  which 
resulted  in  the  empire  oj  Rome  —  only  appear  to  have 
purpose  and  value  when  viewed  in  connection  with,  or 
rather  as  subsidiary  to,  the  great  stream  of  Anglo-Saxon 
emigration  to  the  West." 

CHARLES  DARWIN 


II 


THE  PURITAN  EXODUS  — A  BOSTON 
ADVENTURE  —  JOHN  COTTON 

Westward  the  star  of  empire  takes  its  way. 
—  EPIGRAPH  TO  BANCROFT'S  History  of  the  United  States 

'HILE  Lincolnshire  was  at  the  root  of 
the  Separatist  pilgrimage  from  which 
sprang  the  Plymouth  Colony,  it  was 
also  associated  with,  and  indeed  gave  the  impetus 
to,  the  great  Puritan  exodus  which  followed 
from  1628  onward,  out  of  which  grew  the  Massa- 
chusetts Settlements.  Both  movements  had 
their  origin  in  the  county  in  which  Gainsborough 
first  and  Boston  next  were  the  cradles  of  non- 
conforming  activity.  The  Eastern  Counties 
joined  in  the  later  emigration,  attended  with 
such  far-reaching  results,  and  Dorset,  Devon, 
and  Somerset  had  an  important  share  in  it. 
It  was  this  movement,  composed  for  the  most 
part  of  men  driven  unwillingly  out  of  the 
Church  of  England,  that  secured  the  ultimate 
permanency  of  the  foothold  on  American  soil 
obtained  by  the  heroic  pioneer  planters  of  New 
Plymouth. 

The  Puritan  exodus,  which  was  to  have  such 
momentous  consequences,  had  its  inception  in 


18     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

1627,  when  (as  Thomas  Dudley,  who  emigrated 
in  1 630,  wrote  home  to  the  Lady  Bridget,  Countess 
of  Lincoln)    "some   friends   being   together   in 
Lincolnshire  fell  into  discourse  about  New  Eng- 
land and  the  planting  of  the  Gospel  there." 
We  know  who  those  friends  were.     The  central 
figures  were  Theophilus  Clinton,  Earl  of  Lincoln, 
and  his  family,  around  whom  are  grouped  John 
Cotton    and    his    Boston    men,    and    Dudley, 
Cotton's  friend  and  the  Earl's  trusted  adviser. 
Their    conferences   in    Boston    Town,    and    at 
Tattershall    Castle    and    Sempringham    Manor 
House,    the    Earl's    neighbouring    seats,    were 
participated  in  by  Isaac  Johnson,  William  Cod- 
dington,   Roger  Williams,  and  other  ministers 
and  members  of  the  Puritan  party. 

The  Lincolnshire  leaders  were  at  this  time 
in  communication  with  the  men  of  Dorchester, 
who  had  attempted  without  success  to  estab- 
lish a  trading  station  on  the  shores  of  North 
America.  The  idea  of  a  settlement  there  was 
now  rekindled,  and  John  White,  the  Puritan 
rector  of  Dorchester  —  that  father  of  New  Eng- 
land colonisation  —  fanned  into  flame  the  dying 
embers  of  hope.  John  Endicott  being  selected 
to  head  the  enterprise,  a  patent  was,  in  March, 

1628,  obtained  from  the  Council  of  New  Eng- 
land, and,  sailing  from  Weymouth  in  the  Abigail, 
Endicott  landed  in  September  on  the  neck  of 
land  now  called  Charlestown  and  there  began 
"wilderness  work,"   in  which  he  was  assisted 
by  the  Plymouth  Colonists. 


THE   PURITAN  FATHERS 


The  venture  prospering,  John  Winthrop  and 
his  partners  acquired  the  rights  and  interests  on 
Massachusetts  Bay  granted  under  the  deed  of 
1628,  and,  in  March,  1629,  secured  the  charter 
of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Company.  In  April 
and  May,  1629,  this  corporation  sent  out  an 
expedition  of  five  ships :  the  George,  the  Talbot, 
the  Lion's  Whelp,  the  Four  Sisters,  and  the 
Mayflower — the  same  Mayflower  of  famous  mem- 
ory, which  nine  years  before  had  conveyed  across 
the  Atlantic  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  and  was  now 
assisting  also  in  the  settlement  of  Massachusetts 
Bay.  She  was  yet  further  to  be  heard  of  in 
connection  with  the  New  England  colonisation. 
These  ships  carried  Samuel  Skelton,  from  Lin- 
colnshire, and  two  other  ministers,  Francis  Hig- 
ginson,  of  Leicester,  and  Francis  Bright,  from 
Rayleigh  in  Essex,  together  with  a  goodly  com- 
pany and  plenty  of  supplies. 

But  it  was  not  until  the  spring  of  1630  that 
the  main  body  of  Puritan  emigrants  sailed  from 
Southampton.  This  was  John  Winthrop's 
party.  They  numbered  with  their  servants 
upwards  of  a  thousand  souls,  and  filled  with  their 
belongings  quite  a  little  fleet  of  ships.  Drawn 
chiefly  from  the  English  middle  class,  they  in- 
cluded many  persons  of  genteel  birth  and  some 
of  noble  family,  notably  the  Lady  Arbella 
Fiennes,  wife  of  Isaac  Johnson  and  sister  of 
the  Earl  of  Lincoln. 

These  voyagers  to  the  West  did  not  leave  their 
native  land  without  the  pastoral  exhortation  and 


20    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


benediction,  which  were  delivered  by  John 
Cotton  himself — "the  John  Robinson  of  the  Bos- 
ton Pilgrims"  he  has  been  aptly  called — who, 
although  in  shattered  health  and  on  the  eve  of 
a  prostrating  sickness,  had  journeyed  down  from 
the  Fens,  with  his  good  friends  among  the  emi- 
grants, to  see  them  safe  on  board.  And  there 
he  stood  on  the  deck  of  one  of  these  ships — most 
probably  the  Arbella,  in  which  Winthrop  and 
the  principal  people  were  passengers  —  anchored 
in  Southampton  Water,  just  as  Pastor  Robinson 
had  stood  ten  years  before  on  the  shore  at 
Delfshaven  to  speak  farewell  words  of  advice 
and  comfort. 

The  sermon  which  Cotton  preached  on  this 
memorable  occasion  was  from  the  appropriate 
text  II  Samuel  vii.  10,  "Moreover  I  will  ap- 
point a  place  for  my  people  Israel,  and  I  will 
plant  them,  that  they  may  dwell  in  a  place  of 
their  own,  and  move  no  more."  It  was  after- 
wards published  under  the  title  of  "God's 
Promise  to  His  Plantation."  The  discourse  in 
its  simple,  touching  diction,  and  that  per- 
suasive eloquence  for  which  Cotton  was  famed, 
must  at  such  a  time  have  deeply  impressed 
these  people  who  were  just  setting  out  for  a  far- 
distant  shore.  "Have  special  care,"  he  said, 
"that  you  ever  have  the  ordinances  planted 
amongst  you,  or  else  never  look  for  security," 
and  again  as  he  closed,  "Neglect  not  walls,  and 
bulwarks,  and  fortifications  for  your  own  de- 
fence; but  ever  let  the  name  of  the  Lord  be  your 


THE   PURITAN  FATHERS    21 

strong  tower,  and  the  word  of  His  promise  the 
rock  of  your  refuge."  Sad,  as  such  partings  always 
were,  must  have  been  the  leave-taking  of  John 
Cotton  and  these  friends,  most  but  not  all  of 
whom,  after  three  and  a  half  eventful  years,  he 
was  fated  to  rejoin  in  their  wilderness  home. 

The  main  expedition  had  a  great  "send  off." 
Led  by  the  Arbella,  with  the  Ambrose,  the  Jewel, 
and  the  Talbot  astern,  the  ships  were  cheered 
by  crowds  of  assembled  spectators  as  they  left 
port. 

While  the  Arbella,  with  Winthrop  and  the 
charter  on  board,  was  detained  off  Yarmouth, 
Isle  of  Wight,  on  April  7,  the  departing  com- 
pany issued  their  interesting  farewell  letter  "to 
the  rest  of  their  brethren  in  and  of  the  Church 
of  England,  for  the  obtaining  of  their  prayers 
and  the  removal  of  suspicions  and  miscon- 
struction of  their  intentions,"  and  avowing 
their  continued  attachment  to  "our  dear 
Mother"  Church.  The  document  was  signed  by 
Governor  Winthrop  and  his  chief  associates, 
who  had  solemnly  agreed  "to  pass  the  seas  (under 
God's  protection),  to  inhabit  and  continue  in 
New  England";  the  second  signature  being  that 
of  Charles  Fiennes,  of  the  family  of  Lord  Say 
and  Sele,  one  of  whose  daughters  married  the 
young  Earl  of  Lincoln,  a  brother  of  the  Lady 
Arbella  Johnson. 

The  voyage  was  speedily  resumed.  From 
what  Thomas  Dudley  afterwards  wrote  to  the 
Countess  of  Lincoln,  we  know  that  it  was  an 


22     T  HE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

exciting  one.  Scarcely  had  they  lost  sight  of 
land  when  eight  sail  were  descried  from  the 
masthead  coming  up  astern.  These  surely  were 
the  Frenchmen  of  which  they  had  been  warned; 
so  hasty  preparations  of  a  warlike  kind  were 
made  to  receive  them.  On  Dudley's  ship  Lady 
Arbella  and  the  other  women  were  removed 
with  the  children  to  the  lower  deck,  the  gun- 
deck  was  cleared,  cannon  were  loaded  and  powder 
chests  and  "fireworks"  got  ready,  and  the  men, 
all  armed,  were  appointed  to  their  quarters. 
Then  the  captain  having,  as  an  experiment, 
"shot  a  ball  of  wildfire  fastened  to  an  arrow 
out  of  a  crossbow,  which  burned  in  the  water 
a  good  time,"  all  went  to  prayer  on  the  upper 
deck,  after  which  the  ship  "tacked  about  and 
stood  to  meet  them."  But  it  was  a  false  alarm. 
The  suspected  enemy  proved  to  be  the  tail  of 
the  expedition,  and  as  the  ships  met  they  saluted 
each  other,  and  "our  fear  and  danger  was  turned 
into  mirth  and  friendly  entertainment,"  a  happy 
ending  of  the  scare. 

Without  further  adventure  of  the  kind  to 
break  the  tedium  of  the  voyage,  the  exiles 
reached  New  England  on  June  12,  and,  landing 
at  Salem,  pitched  their  tents  on  Charlestown 
Hill,  afterwards  crossing  the  Charles  River. 
They  called  the  place  (the  Shawmut  of  the 
Indians)  Trimountain,  because  of  its  three  hills; 
but  later  it  was  renamed  Boston,1  in  honour  of 


1  The  order   of  the  Court   of  Assistants,   Governor   Winthrop 
presiding,  "that  Trimountain  shall  be  called  Boston,"  was  passed 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    23 

Old  Boston,  which  sent  to  the  settlement  many 
prominent  Puritans. 

Almost  the  first  thing  these  Christian  emigrants 
did  was  to  form  a  church;  and  on  July  30  — 
a  day  solemnised  at  Salem  and  at  Plymouth, 
at  Dorchester  and  at  Watertown,  as  well  as  by 
the  Massachusetts  Company  at  Charlestown  — 
four  of  their  chief  men  framed  and  subscribed 
the  covenant  which  stood  unaltered  through  the 
centuries  as  that  of  the  First  Church  in  Boston. 
The  first  to  sign  was  Governor  John  Winthrop, 
a  man  of  learning,  wisdom,  and  piety,  of  whom 
it  is  recorded  that,  when  a  preacher  could  not 
be  found,  he  "exercised  in  the  way  of  prophesy- 
ing," that  is,  he  preached.  After  him  signed 
Thomas  Dudley,  the  deputy-Governor,  a  "man 
of  a  sincere  temper  and  earnest,  honest  purpose," 
but  "somewhat  querulous  and  exacting."  Isaac 
Johnson  comes  next,  "a  prime  man  amongst  us, 
having  the  best  estate  of  any,  zealous  for  re- 
ligion, and  the  greatest  furtherer  of  this  planta- 
tion," but  a  man  fast  passing  from  the  scene  of 
his  cherished  hopes.  "Dead  since"  was  pres- 
ently written  over  his  name  as  it  stands  under 
the  covenant;  and  as  Dudley  affirms,  "he  made 
a  most  godly  end,  dying  willingly."  Last  to 

on  September  7  (o.s.),  1630.  "The  name  of  Boston,"  says  the 
Hon.  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  LL.D.,  President  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Society,  in  "The  Memorial  History  of  Boston" 
(pp.  116-117),  "was  especially  dear  to  the  Massachusetts  colonists 
from  its  associations  with  the  old  St.  Botolph's  Town,  or  Boston 
of  Lincolnshire,  England,  from  which  the  Lady  Arbella  Johnson 
and  her  husband  had  come,  and  where  John  Cotton  was  still  preach- 
ing in  its  noble  Parish  Church." 


: 


24     THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

sign  was  Pastor  John  Wilson,  who  had  been 
"sorely  harassed  in  England  for  nonconform- 
ity," and  who  told  Governor  Winthrop  that, 
"before  he  was  resolved  to  come  into  this 
country,  he  dreamed  he  was  here,  and  that  he 
saw  a  church  arise  out  of  the  earth,  which  grew 
up  and  became  a  marvellous,  goodly  church"; 
which  was  indeed  a  prophetic  vision. 

Sickness  and  famine,  deaths  and  desertions, 
formed  the  tale  of  those  early  days  of  the  Tri- 
mountain  Colony.  But  like  their  neighbours, 
the  New  Plymouth  Pilgrims,  these  Puritan 
settlers  persevered,  and  fresh  arrivals  from  the 
old  country  filled  up  their  diminished  ranks. 
The  first  rush  of  adversity  over,  steady  growth 
set  in.  Mr.  Wilson  returned  to  England  for 
his  family,  and  was  away  more  than  a  year; 
during  his  absence  the  charge  passed  to  John 
Eliot,  the  Apostle  to  the  Indians.  Deacon 
Gager's  service  had  been  of  the  briefest;  he 
died  on  September  I,  "a  godly  man,"  they  said, 
"and  a  skilled  chirurgeon."  Francis  Higgin- 
son,  teacher  at  Salem,  heard  about  the  same 
time  the  call  of  Death.  Governor  Winthrop's 
son,  Henry,  was  drowned  soon  after  arrival. 
It  is  sad  to  have  to  relate  that  one  of  the  earliest 
victims  in  the  new  settlement  was  the  Lady 
Arbella,  who  died  at  the  end  of  August.  Her 
husband,  Mr.  Johnson,  a  month  later  followed 
her  to  the  grave.  One  was  buried  at  Salem 
and  the  other  in  what  came  to  be  known  as  the 
King's  Chapel  ground.  (Hawthorne  in  "The 


John  Rogers,  Sculp. 

JOHN  ELIOT  PREACHING  TO  THE  INDIANS 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    25 

Scarlet  Letter"  speaks  of  "the  broad,  flat, 
armorial  tombstone  of  a  departed  worthy  — 
perhaps  of  Isaac  Johnson  himself"  over  which 
the  elf-child,  Pearl,  irreverently  skipped  and 
danced.)  Mr.  Johnson  belonged  to  Clipsham  in 
Rutlandshire,  and  after  his  marriage  had  resided 
at  Boston  in  a  town  house  of  the  Earl  of  Lin- 
coln's in  Barbridge  Street,  or  modern  Eargate, 
where  the  Earl  had  a  mansion,  gardens,  and 
land.  The  Dineley  family  had  for  many  years 
occupied  a  residence  in  Bargate,  to  the  south 
of  the  Earl  of  Lincoln's  property.  Their  name 
is  found  among  the  early  settlers  of  Boston, 
Mass.,  and  this  fact  suggests  the  probability 
that  they  came  under  the  influence  of  their 
Bargate  neighbours. 

The  curious  story  has  here  to  be  related,  that 
of  the  actual  sailing  from  Old  Boston  of  a  ship- 
load of  Puritans.  The  attempt  of  1607  was 
nipped  in  the  bud,  and  that  from  the  Humber 
in  1608  was  not  completely  successful.  This 
second  Boston  venture,  early  in  1636,  in  the 
good  ship  Prosperous,  with  eighty  emigrants, 
succeeded  so  far  as  clearing  the  port  went;  but 
the  vessel  never  reached  New  England,  some 
queer  doings  interposing. 

We  know  that  the  Earl  of  Lincoln's  family  sup- 
ported the  American  colonisation,  and  we  have 
seen  the  unhappy  fate  of  the  Lady  Arbella.  Her 
sister,  Lady  Susanna,  wife  of  John  Humphrey, 
also  went  out  to  New  England;  while  a  third 
daughter  of  the  family  married  that  conspicuous 


26     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

figure  in  New  England  life,  John  Gorges.  Their 
uncle,  Sir  Henry  Fiennes  of  Kirkstead,  was  a 
zealous  Puritan,  and  it  was  his  son,  Harrington 
Fiennes,  who  shipped  the  fourscore  emigrants  in 
the  Prosperous  at  Boston.  Their  destination 
was  given  out  as  Harwich,  and  for  their  landing 
there  Sir  Henry  Fiennes  and  his  friend,  Robert 
Hutton,  of  Lynn,  became  bound  to  the  Crown 
in  six  hundred  pounds.  But  they  did  not  land 
at  Harwich,  and  inquiry  was  set  afoot  to  learn 
the  reason  why.  Some  sort  of  explanation  was 
necessary,  both  in  the  interest  of  the  shippers 
and  of  the  bond. 

"Marmaduke  Rayson,  of  Hull,  gentleman," 
made  the  explanation.  It  took  the  form  of 
a  deposition,  one  so  quaint  and  startling 
that  we  had  better  have  the  reciter's  own 
words.  "Now  this  deponent  declares  that  he 
was  one  of  the  said  persons  so  shipped,  and 
for  which  the  said  obligation  was  entered  into, 
and  that  the  said  ship  and  men  being  in  their 
passage  from  Boston  towards  Harwich,  they 
were  set  upon  and  taken  by  French  pirates,  and 
were  robbed  and  stripped,  both  of  their  apparel 
and  all  their  other  goods  and  provisions  in  the 
said  ship,  and  so  were  violently  carried  away; 
but  it  happened  that  a  ship  of  Dunkirk  met 
with  them,  and  chased  away  the  French  ship, 
and  did  carry  the  said  ship  in  which  this  depo- 
nent, with  the  residue  of  the  said  passengers 
then  were,  towards  Dunkirk,  but  yet,  by  the 
said  Dunkirker's  direction,  this  deponent  and 


THE   PURITAN  FATHERS    27 


the  residue  of  the  said  passengers  were  set 
ashore  upon  the  French  coast,  by  means  whereof 
the  said  passengers  could  not  be  landed  at 
Harwich,  according  to  the  condition  of  the  said 
obligation." 

Presumably  the  bond  was  saved.  The  seizure 
by  a  pirate  watching  The  Wash  was  a  thing 
likely  enough  to  happen,  and  the  story  was 
certainly  plausible.  The  Crown,  one  concludes, 
would  have  to  be  satisfied  with  it.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  the  purpose  of  the  expedition  is  plain 
to  us.  Its  failure  was  but  in  keeping  with  the 
ill-fortune  of  the  Puritan  voyages  from  the 
Lincolnshire  coast. 

Notable  men  made  the  passage  with  Governor 
Winthrop.  Samuel  Skelton,  the  Lincolnshire 
clergyman  who  had  already  gone  out,  was 
among  the  first  ministers  of  Salem,  but  his  work 
was  short,  for  he  died  within  five  years.  The 
son  of  a  second  nonconforming  divine  of  the 
same  county  was  Simon  Bradstreet,  born  at 
Horbling,  who  emigrated  in  1630  and  years  later 
came  to  be  a  Governor  of  Massachusetts;  he 
was  to  survive  them  all  and  to  be  known  as 
"the  Nestor  of  New  England." 

The  Rev.  Thomas  James  was  another  Lin- 
colnshire man.  He  arrived  in  New  England 
two  years  after  Bradstreet  and  was  the  first 
minister  of  Charlestown ;  but  he  returned  home 
subsequently,  became  minister  of  Needham  in 
Suffolk,  and  was  ejected  for  nonconformity. 
George  Phillips  the  minister  came  over  in  the 


i'/y 

1 


I 


28     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


Arbella.  With  Thomas  Dudley,  a  Northamp- 
ton man,  but  a  disciple  of  Cotton's  at  Boston, 
William  Coddington,  of  Alford  and  of  Rhode 
Island  fame,  Dudley's  friend  and  Cotton's 
pupil,  was  also  a  passenger  in  the  Arbella.  So 
was  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  "that  excellent 
knight"  as  Mather  called  him,  who  did  not 
remain  in  New  England  for  long;  while  another 
of  the  ships  carried  John  Wilson,  the  Sudbury 
preacher,  "a  man  great  in  discipline,"  inspired 
by  a  noble  dream. 

In  March,  1631,  the  Council  of  Plymouth 
made  a  grant  of  territory  to  the  Earl  of  Warwick, 
who  transferred  his  patent  to  William  Fiennes, 
Viscount  Say  and  Sele,  and  as  a  result  of  this 
the  Puritan  settlement  of  Connecticut  was 
founded.  It  was  to  Lord  Say  and  Sele  that 
John  Cotton  wrote,  three  years  later,  that 
Mr.  Pym,  Mr.  Hampden,  Sir  Arthur  Hasbrig, 
Oliver  Cromwell,  and  others  had  prepared  to 
join  the  brethren  in  New  England,  but  were 
discovered  and  restrained  by  the  Crown. 

All  this  brings  us  to  the  exodus,  in  1633,  of 
the  Puritan  exiles  from  Old  Boston  and  its 
neighbourhood:  John  Cotton,  Richard  Belling- 
ham,  Thomas  Leverett  and  his  son  John, 
Atherton  Hough  and  others  —  names  to  con- 
jure with  in  New  England  history.  Here  were 
some  of  the  best  citizens  that  were  to  be  of 
the  young  America.  Including  those  who  had 
already  gone  out,  no  other  town  or  district  made 
such  a  religious  and  political  contribution  to 


SIR  RICHARD  SALTONSTALL 


PURITAN  FATHERS 


29 


the  building  of  the  Massachusetts  Settlements.1 
Small  wonder  that  they  rechristened  Trimoun- 
tain  and  called  it  Boston.  Good  men  and  true 
there  were  who  hailed  from  divers  parts  and 
rendered  the  best  service  to  the  new-born 
nation;  but  no  other  place  gave  it  so  many 
worthies.  And  the  chief  of  them  all  was  John 
Cotton. 

The  future  teacher  of  the  first  Church  in  the 
New  Boston  succeeded  Thomas  Wool  as  Vicar 
of  Old  Boston  in  1612.  The  circumstances  were 
uncommon.  Benjamin  Alexander  was  selected, 
but  did  not  accept.  And  it  is  said  that  Cotton's 
election  was  due  to  a  mistake  of  Mayor  Nicholas 
Smith,  who,  having  to  give  a  casting  vote,  in- 
tended to  vote  against  him,  but  put  the  mark  in 
the  wrong  place!  Cotton  Mather,  the  Vicar's 
grandson,  tells  how  the  Mayor  requested  a 
second  ballot  and  repeated  the  mistake,  and 
then  wanted  a  third,  which  the  wearied  Council 
refused. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  names  of  "Cotton" 
and  "John  Cotton"  occur  often  in  the  Boston 


1  "Various  influences  were  united  in  the  constitution  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Company  that  also  affected  the  policy  of  the  Colony.  The 
religious  and  political  elements  are  more  marked  in  the  views  and  pur- 
poses of  the  men  from  the  eastern  counties  of  England,  usually  termed 
'the  Boston  men.'  The  commercial  element  existed  more  visibly 
among  the  adventurers  from  the  western  counties  of  Dorset  and  Devon, 
who  were  commonly  designated  '  the  Dorchester  men.'  The  merchants 
and  capitalists  of  London  mingled  hopes  of  profit  with  the  desire  to  do 
good  and  advance  the  sense  of  religion."  —  Samuel  Foster  Haven, 
LL.  D.,  Librarian  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  in  "The 
Memorial  History  of  Boston,"  Vol.  I,  p.  88. 


3o     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

parish  registers  among  the  burials  and  baptisms 
towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
There  is  a  christening  in  1572  of  John,  son  of 
John  Cotton.  The  funerals  start  in  1571  with  an 
Isabel  Cotton;  John  Cotton,  and  Edward  son  of 
John,  follow  in  1575;  William  Cotton  died  in 
1578,  and  Margery  Cotton  followed  in  1580.  As 
though  this  were  not  enough,  the  local  historian 
says  another  John  Cotton  was  buried  on  May 
27,  1576;  but  this  surely  was  the  John  Cotton 
registered  March  27,  1575.  There  was  a  John 
Cotton  who  died  at  Kirton  in  1592;  and  the 
first  of  the  name  to  be  found  hereabout  was 
Hugh  Cotton,  Rector  of  Wyberton  in  1540  and 
predecessor  there  of  Bishop  Sanderson,  author 
of  the  General  Thanksgiving  and  Preface  to  the 
Prayer  Book. 

But  all  the  Cottons  enumerated  notwith- 
standing, John  Cotton,  Vicar  of  Boston,  did 
not  originate  from  Old  Boston  or  anywhere  near 
it.  He  was  born  at  Derby  and  descended  from 
Cottons  in  that  district.  The  son  of  Roland 
Cotton,  who  is  said  to  have  been  "educated  as 
a  lawyer,"  his  parents,  an  early  biographer  tells 
us,  were  "of  good  reputation;  their  condition, 
as  to  the  things  of  this  life,  competent;  neither 
unable  to  defray  the  expenses  of  his  education 
in  literature,  nor  so  abounding  as  to  be  a  tempta- 
tion, on  the  other  hand,  unto  the  neglect  thereof." 
John  Cotton  received  his  first  instruction  under 
Mr.  Johnson,  master  of  Derby  Grammar  School. 
He  entered  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  in  1598, 


i 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    31 

before  completing  his  thirteenth  year,  and  after- 
wards migrated  to  Emmanuel,  of  which  he  was 
chosen  fellow  after  taking  his  bachelor  degree, 
and  then  head  lecturer,  dean,  and  catechist, 
while  also  acting  as  tutor.  He  was  admitted 
master  of  arts  in  1 606  at  the  age  of  twenty-one. 
In  becoming  fellow  he  had  "taken  orders"  in 
the  Established  Church,  as  was  then  the  custom 
both  at  Cambridge  and  Oxford.  Cotton  was  a 
brilliant  scholar.  "He  was  proficient  in  the 
logic  and  philosophy  then  taught  in  the  schools; 
was  a  critical  master  of  Greek;  and  could  con- 
verse fluently  either  in  Latin  or  in  Hebrew." 
His  power  of  application  was  remarkable,  and 
he  retained  it  with  little  remission  to  the  end. 
"A  sand-glass,"  we  are  told,  "which  would  run 
four  hours  stood  near  him  as  he  studied,  and 
being  turned  over  three  times,  measured  his 
day's  work.  This  he  called  'a  scholar's  day." 
The  same  methodical  habits  clung  to  him  in 
after  years.  He  was  careful  and  thorough  in 
preparation  for  his  Sunday  work,  and  his  sermons 
were  always  finished  by  two  o'clock  on  Saturday 
afternoons;  in  allusion  to  which  he  once  said, 
in  rebuking  the  careless  ways  of  others,  "God 
will  curse  that  man's  labours  who  lumbers  up 
and  down  in  the  world  all  the  week,  and  then 
upon  Saturday  in  the  afternoon  goes  to  his 
study." 

At  twenty-three  he  made  a  reputation  for 
himself  with  a  funeral  oration  in  Latin  on  Dr. 
Some,  Master  of  Peterhouse.  Cotton  at  this 


32    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

time  came  under  the  influence  of  William 
Perkins,  the  Puritan  preacher  at  St.  Mary's, 
Cambridge.  For  a  while  he  tried  to  resist  it, 
from  the  fear  that  if  he  became  a  godly  man  it 
would  spoil  him  from  being  a  learned  man. 
But  the  influence  prevailed.  In  1609  he  was 
again  at  St.  Mary's,  and  his  sermon  on  that 
occasion  enhanced  his  reputation  as  a  scholar 
and  pulpit  orator.  When  next  he  was  announced 
to  preach  in  St.  Mary's  Church  the  vice-chan- 
cellor and  heads  of  the  University  flocked  to 
hear  him.  Expectation  ran  high.  But  this  time 
it  was  no  mere  rhetorical  display.  "He  now 
distinguished  between  the  words  of  wisdom 
and  the  wisdom  of  words,"  a  biographer  quaintly 
observes;  and  instead  of  a  showy  sermon  from 
an  ambitious  divine  they  heard  only  a  plain 
and  practical,  and  perhaps  disturbing  discourse 
on  repentance.  The  audience  were  disappointed 
and  Cotton  "retired  to  his  chamber  much  de- 
pressed." But .  the  seal  from  that  hour  was 
set  upon  his  life's  work.  This  was  the  starting 
point  along  the  road  of  his  ministerial  career. 
That  he  lost  nothing  of  his  pulpit  power,  but 
rather  increased  it  as  he  advanced,  we  have 
abundant  evidence.  Six  months  after  his  Bos- 
ton appointment  he  took  his  B.D.  degree,  and 
the  address  he  then  delivered  at  Cambridge 
marked  him  as  a  spiritual  force  and  an  intel- 
lectually able  preacher. 

Bishop  Barlow  was  at  first  against  Cotton's 
election  to  Boston  because  he  was  a  young  man 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Corporation  Record  Book 

RECORD  OF  THE  APPOINTMENT  OF  JOHN  COTTON  AS  VICAR, 
JUNE  24,   1612 

The  record  (second  paragraph  on  the  page)  sets  forth  that  Mr.  Cotton,  Master  of 
Arts,  is  "now  elected  and  chosen  vicar  of  this  borough"  in  the  room  and  place  of  Mr. 
Wolles,  the  late  incumbent,  "for  that  Mr.  Alexander,  upon  -whom  the  vicarage  was  pro- 
posed to  have  been  bestowed,  hath  yielded  up  the  same,"  and  Mr.  Cotton  was  "to  hate  his 
presentation  forthwith  sealed  and  to  have  the  same  stipend  and  allowance"  that  Mr. 
Wolles  had.  On  July  13th  it  will  be  seen  the  presentation  to  the  vicarage  was  sealed 
for  delivery  to  Mr.  Cotton,  and  the  sum  of  40/-  was  taken  out  of  the  treasury  to  bear  his 
charges  from  Cambridge,  while  60/-  was  given  to  Mr.  Whitlow,  "a  Master  of  Artes 
whoe  came  hither  to  preache  from  Cambridge." 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    33 

—  he  was  seven-and-twenty  —  and  in  the  epis- 
copal opinion  "unfit  to  be  over  such  a  factious 
people,  who  were  imbued  with  the  Puritan 
spirit."  The  Mayor  perhaps  had  the  same  ob- 
jection to  him;  if  so  we  may  hope  that  he 
shared  also  the  bishop's  altered  view;  for,  hav- 
ing been  by  some  means  "conciliated"  without 
Cotton's  knowledge,  the  shrewd  Dr.  Barlow 
presently  changed  about  and  gave  out  that 
"Mr.  Cotton  was  an  honest  and  a  learned  man." 
And  he  was  a  zealous  one  too,  and  he  made  many 
friends,  though  not  without  tribulation. 

The  trial  soon  came.  There  dwelt  in  Boston 
at  that  time  one  Peter  Baron,  son  of  a  divinity 
reader  at  Cambridge,  a  physician  whose  energies 
were  not  absorbed  by  his  profession,  for  he  was 
an  Alderman  and  Mayor  two  years  before 
Cotton  came,  and  he  seems  generally  to  have 
dominated  his  neighbours.  Among  other  things 
he  was  a  controversialist;  he  was  full  of  the  new 
notions  about  Arminianism,  with  which  he  had 
"leavened  many  of  the  chief  men  of  the  town," 
and  for  a  while  he  sorely  perplexed  the  new  Vicar, 
a  staunch  believer  in  Calvin.  The  doctor  was  a 
difficult  man  to  handle,  and  Cotton  was  cautious 
in  setting  to  work,  but  he  persevered,  and  he 
finally  suceeded.  "It  came  to  pass  that  in  all 
the  great  feasts  of  the  town,"  he  wrote  in  some 
personal  reminiscences  l  —  the  festive-board  was 

1  In  "The  Way  of  Congregational  Churches  Cleared,"  London,  1648, 
some  portion  of  which  treats  autobiographically  of  events  at  Boston 
soon  after  the  writer  settled  in  the  town. 


34     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

a  serious  business  in  those  days  —  "the  chiefest 
discourse  at  table  did  ordinarily  fall  upon 
Arminian  points,  to  the  great  offence  of  the 
godly  ministers  both  of  Boston  and  in  neigh- 
bouring towns.  I  coming  before  them  a  young 
man,  I  thought  it  a  part  both  of  modesty  and 
prudence  not  to  speak  much  to  the  points  at 
first,  amongst  strangers  and  ancients;  until 
afterwards,  after  hearing  of  many  discourses  in 
public  meetings,  and  much  private  conference 
with  the  doctor,  I  had  learned  at  length  where 
all  the  great  strength  of  the  doctor  lay.  And 
then  observing  such  expressions  as  gave  him 
any  advantage  in  the  opinions  of  others,  I  began 
publicly  to  preach,  and  in  private  meetings  to 
defend,  the  doctrines  of  God's  eternal  election 
and  the  redemption  only  of  the  elect;  and  the 
impossibility  of  the  fall  of  a  sincere  believer, 
either  totally  or  finally,  from  the  estate  of  grace." 
The  result  was  victory  for  the  young  preacher. 
"Presently  after,  our  public  feasts  and  neigh- 
bourly meetings  were  silent  from  all  further 
debates  about  predestination,  or  any  of  the 
points  which  depend  thereon,  and  all  matters  of 
religion  were  carried  on  calmly  and  peaceably; 
insomuch  that,  when  God  opened  my  eyes  to 
the  sin  of  conformity  (which  was  soon  after), 
my  neglect  thereof  was  at  first  tolerated  without 
disturbance  and  at  length  embraced  by  the 
chief  and  greatest  part  of  the  town."  The  fact 
that  in  our  own  time  Arminian  tenets  are  almost 
universally  accepted,  while  those  of  Calvin  are 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    35 


as  generally  discarded,  detracts  nothing  from 
the  dues  of  Cotton  as  a  preacher  and  teacher 
in  his  day  and  generation. 

The  seeds  of  nonconformity  sown  by  John 
Cotton  fell  on  congenial  soil.  Boston  had  long 
declared  for  Protestantism.  Dr.  Barlow,  we 
have  seen,  referred  to  its  "factious  people" 
who  were  "imbued  with  the  Puritan  spirit," 
and  Sir  John  Lambe,  Dean  of  Arches,  later 
spoke  of  "the  Puritan  town  of  Boston."  Lin- 
colnshire, when  Cotton  came,  had  been  strenu- 
ously resisting  the  ceremonies  imposed  on  the 
Puritan  clergy.  Reports  of  proceedings  in  the 
Ecclesiastical  Courts,  preserved  in  the  old  Aln- 
wick  Tower  at  Lincoln,  show  that  the  father  of 
Simon  Bradstreet,  the  Puritan  minister  of  Hor- 
bling,  was  repeatedly  cited  for  nonconformity 
and  at  last  openly  defied  the  Court.  Dr.  John 
Burgess,  another  Lincolnshire  rector,  was  de- 
prived in  1604  for  preaching  against  ceremonies, 
and  at  the  close  of  that  year  the  ministers 
of  the  county  petitioned  King  James  with  a 
defence  of  their  brethren  who  were  being  sus- 
pended and  deprived  for  the  same  offence. 
Thomas  Wool,  Vicar  of  Boston  since  1599,  was 
presented  at  the  Archdeacon's  Visitation  in 
1606  "for  that  he  weareth  not  the  surplice:  it 
hath  been  tendered  unto  him,  and  he  sitteth 
upon  it."  Wool  was  preferred  in  1612  to  the 
rectory  of  Skirbeck,  then  in  the  patronage  of 
Boston  Corporation,  and  he  died  there  in 
1618. 


36     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

Let  us  look  at  the  situation  which  had  arisen. 
The  Marian  persecutions  had  sent  a  large  number 
of  Protestant-minded  Englishmen  for  safety  to 
Geneva  and  other  places  where  the  Calvinistic 
system  prevailed,  and  they  returned  home  strong 
upholders  of  the  new  doctrines  and  system  of 
church  government.  They  scorned  the  mild- 
ness of  the  Church's  discipline,  they  disliked  the 
episcopal  form  of  government,  they  scented 
superstition  in  every  rite  and  ceremony;  and 
in  particular,  like  Vicar  Wool,  they  despised 
the  distinctive  dress  of  the  clergy,  and  indeed 
objected  generally  to  the  regulations  of  the 
Church.  Some  Puritans,  under  pressure,  did 
temporarily  conform;  but  the  more  advanced 
among  them  sternly  refused  to  obey,  and  were 
prepared  to  suffer  the  consequences.  But 
neither  conforming  nor  nonconforming  Puritan 
ever  thought  of  leaving  the  Church  because  he 
disagreed  with  its  doctrine  or  discipline;  the 
bare  idea  of  a  permanent  religious  division  would 
have  seemed  a  confession  of  national  and  spiritual 
weakness  too  insufferable  to  be  entertained. 
Ascendency,  not  toleration,  was  the  aim  and 
policy  of  all  alike;  and  it  gradually  became 
plain  that  there  was  no  possibility  of  Anglicans 
and  advanced  Puritans  remaining  in  the  same 
religious  organisation :  the  question  was  whether 
the  Church  was  to  retain  its  ancient  doctrine 
or  be  captured  by  the  small,  but  zealous  and 
influential,  body  of  Puritans. 

The  cause  of  the  latter  was  probably  repre- 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    37 


sented  at  Boston  more  or  less  throughout 
Elizabeth's  reign.  One  of  the  Puritan  antip- 
athies was  to  organs  and  chanting,  and  a  stop 
was  effectually  put  to  organ  music  in  Boston 
church.  In  August,  1590,  the  Corporation, 
without  any  legal  license,  ordered  the  great 
screen  between  the  chancel  and  nave  to  be 
demolished,  and  found  itself  involved  in  trouble- 
some and  expensive  litigation  in  consequence. 
A  suit  was  brought  before  the  High  Commis- 
sioners for  ecclesiastical  causes  against  George 
Earle,  a  former  Mayor,  Jasper  Hicks,  Mayor 
the  following  year,  and  Mr.  Parrowe,  members 
of  the  Hall,  and  Mr.  Worshippe  the  Vicar,  for 
taking  down  the  loft  wherein  the  organ  stood  in 
the  church,  "agreeably  to  an  order  of  the  Hall." 
They  consented  to  set  it  up  again;  but  as  the 
organ  had  been  destroyed  and  another  was  not 
built  until  1713,  the  services  must  for  one 
hundred  and  twenty-three  years  have  been  un- 
accompanied by  instrumental  music.  William 
Armstead,  who  followed  James  Worshippe  in 
1592,  may  have  been  one  of  the  clergy  banished 
by  Elizabeth  in  1593,  for  he  ceased  to  be  Vicar 
of  Boston  in  December  of  that  year.  Of  the 
proceedings  of  Samuel  Wright,  the  next  incum- 
bent, nothing  is  ascertainable ;  but  Thomas 
Wool  we  know  held  decided  views,  for  he  sat 
upon  the  surplice.  Mr.  Alexander,  "upon  whom 
it  was  proposed  to  bestow  the  vicarage"  in 
1612,  had  been  Mayor's  chaplain  two  years, 
and  his  decision  may  or  may  not  have  been 


fi 


38     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

influenced  by  the  religious  complications  of  the 
time.  At  any  rate  he  "yielded  up  the  same," 
and  to  Boston  came  John  Cotton. 

Other  fundamental  differences  apart,  the  Puri- 
tans had  accepted  Calvin's  notions  as  to  the 
predestination  of  every  soul  to  either  salvation 
or  damnation;  whereas  the  Church  had  always 
held  that  God's  absolute  foreknowledge  was 
still  compatible  with  a  free  choice  for  every 
soul  between  good  and  evil.  Cotton  adopted 
the  Puritan  views  in  their  most  extreme  form: 
(i)  As  to  the  authority  of  the  Church,  "the 
ministers  of  Christ,  and  the  keys  of  the  govern- 
ment of  His  Church,  are  given  to  each  particular 
congregational  church  respectively,"  which  made 
it  "unlawful  for  any  church  power  to  enjoin  the 
observation  of  indifferent  ceremonies  which 
Christ  had  not  commanded,"  and  also  appar- 
ently made  it  unlawful  for  anybody  to  obey 
such  commands  (as  thereby  he  would  be  im- 
plicitly recognising  the  authority  which  gave 
them),  for  he  says:  "I  forebore  all  the  cere- 
monies alike  at  once,  many  years  before  I  left 
England,"  and  "When  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln 
offered  me  liberty"  [i.e.,  to  indulge  his  own  will 
afterwards]  "upon  once  kneeling  at  Sacrament 
with  him  ...  I  durst  not  accept  his  offer." 
This  refusal  was  evidently  based  on  the  ground 
both  that  kneeling  implied  the  presence  of 
Christ  in  the  Sacrament,  and  also  that  obedience 
to  an  order  implied  recognition  of  the  authority 
which  gave  it.  (2)  As  regards  the  doctrine  of 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    39 

free  will,  we  have  seen  that  he  admits  he  pub- 
licly preached,  and  in  private  defended,  the 
theory  of  the  impossibility  of  the  fall  of  a  sincere 
believer  from  the  estate  of  grace.  And  from 
what  is  disclosed  in  the  next  chapter  it  will  be 
apparent  that  in  other  directions  the  opinions 
he  expounded  were,  viewed  in  the  light  of  his 
day,  startlingly  novel  and  unorthodox. 


Ill 


A   CONTEMPORARY   PICTURE  OF 

COTTON  — HIS   PREACHING: 

"DEATH    IN   THE   POT" — 

QUAINT   SERVICES    IN 

BOSTON   CHURCH 


JOHN   COTTON 

The  central  figure  in  these  Pages,  appeared  upon  the 
stage  of  events  associated  with  the  Puritan  Emigration 
jrom  England  and  the  Founding  of  New  England  on  bis 
appointment  as  Vicar  of  Old  Boston  Three  Hundred 
Years  Ago,  June  24tb,  1612 


A  CONTEMPORARY  PICTURE  OF 
COTTON  — HIS   PREACHING: 
"DEATH   IN  THE  POT" 
QUAINT  SERVICES   IN 
BOSTON  CHURCH 

Hisfaitb,  perhaps,  in  some  nice  tenets  might 
Be  wrong;  bis  life,  I'm  sure,  was  in  the  right. 

—  ABRAHAM  COWLEY,  On  the  Death  of  Crasbaw 

MONG  the  manuscripts  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  Lincoln 
Cathedral  there  has  been  preserved  an 
account  by  a  contemporary  of  the  primary  Visi- 
tation of  the  diocese  by  Bishop  Neile  in  1614 
which  is  of  great  interest  and  importance  as 
setting  John  Cotton  before  us  as  he  was  when 
he  had  been  two  years  Vicar  of  Boston.  The 
report  was  probably  drawn  up  by  the  bishop's 
registrar  as  the  bishop  went  through  the 
different  archdeaconries  of  the  diocese,  which 
at  that  time  extended  from  the  Humber  to  the 
Thames,  the  Visitation  being  held  at  seventeen 
different  centres.  From  Horncastle  the  bishop 
proceeded  to  Boston,  where  the  preacher  was 
Cotton,  whom  the  registrar  describes  as  "a 
young  man,  but  by  report  a  man  of  great 
gravity  and  sanctity  of  life,  a  man  of  rare  parts 
for  his  learning,  eloquent  and  well-spoken, 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


ready  upon  a  sudden  and  very  apprehensive  to 
conceive  of  any  point  in  learning  though  never 
so  abstruse,"  insomuch  that,  his  gifts  having 
won  him  such  credit  and  acceptance,  not  only 
with  his  parishioners  in  Boston,  but  with  "all 
the  ministry  and  men  of  account  in  those 
quarters,"  grave  and  learned  men  were  "willing 
to  submit  their  judgments  to  his  in  any  point  of 
controversy,  as  though  he  were  some  extraor- 
dinary Paraclete  that  could  not  err." 

The  registrar  had  ample  opportunity  of  esti- 
mating the  preacher's  quality,  for  he  says,  "Mr. 
Chancellor  and  myself  heard  three  of  his  sermons 
in  two  days,  which  three  were  six  hours  long 
very  near."  Sermons  two  hours  long!  They 
were  well  conceived,  were  delivered  modestly 
and  soberly,  and  well  worthy  of  all  commenda- 
tion ;  but  —  alas !  for  human  imperfection, 
"there  was  mors  in  o//a"  —  death  in  the  pot  — 
"every  sermon  to  our  judgments  was  poisoned 
with  some  error  or  other";  and  the  poison  is 
traced  out  and  labelled  in  many  directions. 

Thus  Cotton  taught  that  the  pagan  world 
would  not  be  condemned  for  want  of  belief  in 
Christ,  but  only  for  moral  transgressions  against 
the  law  of  nature,  written  in  their  hearts;  that 
the  office  of  apostle  had  entirely  ceased,  instead 
of  being  continued  in  the  episcopate;  that  no 
man  who  was  not  a  preacher  could  be  regarded 
as  a  lawful  minister;  that  reading  was  not 
preaching;  that  non-residence  was  utterly  un- 
lawful; that  no  minister  lawfully  observed  the 


THE   PURITAN  FATHERS    45 

Sabbath  unless  two  sermons  were  preached  by 
him;  and  that  the  deacons  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment were  mere  collectors  for  the  poor. 

None  of  these  things  will  seem  very  heinous 
in  our  eyes,  whatever  Bishop  Neile  and  his 
officials  may  have  thought  of  them.  The  ster- 
ling worth  of  this  young  evangelist,  with  all  his 
faults,  so  impressed  the  informant  that  he  was 
fain  to  make  what  excuses  he  could  for  him. 
Puritan  and  nonconformist  as  he  was,  not  out 
of  factiousness,  but  on  principle;  openly  ex- 
pressing his  dislike  of  such  ceremonies  as  the  use 
of  the  cross  in  baptism  and  kneeling  at  the  Holy 
Communion;  heterodox  in  matters  of  church 
doctrine  as  well  as  a  dissenter  from  its  discipline; 
the  beauty  of  his  holy  and  unblemished  life  and 
the  sweetness  of  his  character  are  fully  recog- 
nised in  this  report.  The  cause  of  the  preacher's 
erring  is  not  set  down  to  either  pride  or  profit 
or  wilfulness,  but  to  lack  of  the  right  kind  of 
light.  Clearly,  it  was  thought,  here  was  a 
young  man  who  needed  watching:  he  was  too 
modern,  and,  in  the  matter  of  his  authors,  in 
doubtful  company.  In  view  of  its  interest  and 
importance,  it  will  be  well  to  give  the  full  text 
of  the  Episcopal  Commissaries'  report. 

"17.  Boston.     Mr  Cotton  Mr  of  arts. 

"Text,  i  Cor:  12.  28.  And  God  hath  ordained  some 
in  ye  church,  as  first  Apostles,  secondarily  Prophets, 
thirdly  Teachers,  them  y*  doe  miracles,  after  yl  ye  gift 
of  healing,  helps,  governours,  diversity  of  tongues. 

"The  Preacher  is  but  a  young  man  not  past  some  7 


46    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

or  8  yeares  Mr  of  arts;  but,  by  report,  a  man  of  great 
gravity  and  sanctity  of  life,  a  man  of  rare  pts  for  his 
learning,  eloquent  and  well  spoken,  ready  upon  a  suddaine 
and  very  appehensive  to  conceive  of  any  point  in  learning, 
though  never  soe  abstruse,  in  soe  much  that  those  his 
good  gifts  have  won  him  soe  much  credit  and  acceptance 
not  only  with  his  parishioners  at  Boston  but  with  all  the 
Ministery  and  men  of  account  in  those  quarters,  that  grave 
and  learned  men  out  of  an  admiration  of  those  good  graces 
of  God  in  him,  have  been  and  upon  every  occasion  still 
are  willing  to  submit  their  judgements  to  his,  in  any  point 
of  controversie  as  though  he  were  some  extraordinary 
Paraclete  y*  could  not  erre.  Mr  Chancellour  and  my 
selfe  heard  3  of  his  sermons  in  2  dayes,  wch  3  were  sixe 
howers  long  very  neer.  This  testimonie  we  are  able  to 
give  of  his  sermons:  good  paines  were  bestowed  in  ye 
contriving  of  them,  they  were  delivred  modestly  and 
soberly  and  well  worthie  were  they  of  all  comendations, 
but  that  there  was  mors  in  olla,  every  sermon  to  or  judg- 
ments was  poysoned  with  some  errour  or  other. 

"His  text  upon  the  Sunday  morning  was  John  i.  10. 
n,  upon  these  words,  The  world  knew  him  not,  and  his 
own  received  him  not.  In  one  of  bis  uses  (w  is  a  doctrine 
according  to  his  method  of  the  third  reflection)  he  delivered 
this  dainty  (and  I  thinke  false)  doctrine,  viz.:  That  the 
world,  i.e.,  The  Gentile  and  Pagan  should  not  be  con- 
demned or  judged  for  their  want  of  beleefe  in  Xt,  but 
only  for  their  morall  transgression  agl  the  law  of  nature 
written  in  their  hearts  —  whereas  the  scripture  is  plaine 
That  he  yl  beleeveth  not  is  condemned  already. 

"In  ye  afternoon  in  his  catechizing  The  doctrine  he 
delivVd  as  a  speciall  note  to  discerne  whether  or  tem- 
porall  goods  were  sanctifyed  or  noe,  was  (that  I  may  use 
his  own  words)  to  hate  suretiship,  as  though  suretiship 
in  noe  respect  were  worthie  to  be  numbered  amongst  the 
workes  of  mercy.  And  his  resolute  determination  was, 
Howsoever  suretiship  in  some  case  was  valuable  between 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    47 

neighbour  and  neighbour:  yet  for  a  man  to  be  surety  for 
a  stranger,  it  was  utterly  unlawfull. 

"Upon  Monday  or  Visitation-day,  the  errours  ob- 
served in  his  sermon  were  these  —  i .  Speaking  of  the 
office  of  the  Apostle,  his  determination  was  That  the 
calling  was  totally  extinct,  wch  opinion  of  his  I  take  to 
be  erronious,  for  though  we  have  noe  such  calling  as  the 
calling  of  an  Apostle  in  regard  of  their  mission  (for  yetr 
mission  was  extraordinary,  as  the  Apostle  saith,  neither 
by  men,  nor  yet  from  men)  yet  the  calling  remaineth  in  the 
church,  in  regard  of  their  comission,  for  ye  church  hath 
the  power  of  ye  keyes,  as  it  was  given  to  the  Apostles, 
and,  I  take  it,  though  every  Presbyter  hath  not,  yet  the 
Episcopall  office  hath  the  very  same  extent  of  comission 
with  the  Apostles,  namely  to  baptize  and  teach  all  nations, 
or  at  lest  the  Episcopatus  (as  Sl  Cyprian  saith)  in  solido 
hath. 

"a**  Speaking  of  ye  name  of  Prophets,  he  distin- 
guished them  into  extraordinary  and  ordinary.  The 
office  of  ye  ordinary  Prophets  he  taught  to  consist  only 
in  preaching  of  ye  word,  w011  office  was  the  same  with 
the  calling  of  or  Ministers.  This  exposition  being  laid 
down  for  a  foundation,  his  first  doctrine  or  collection  was, 
That  it  was  a  flatt  errour  to  thinke  any  man  a  lawfull 
minister  w°  was  not  a  preacher,  because  ye  office  of  the 
Prophet  was  to  preach:  intimating  that  the  whole  calling 
of  the  Minister  did  consist  only  in  preaching,  avowing 
that  none  might  chalenge  to  himself  the  name  of  a  prophet 
or  Minister  but  he  only  that  had  some  speciall  gift  be- 
stowed upon  him  wch  he  had  not  before  he  was  called 
to  be  a  minister,  undrstanding  by  that  gift  not  the  gift 
or  facultie  of  his  comission,  by  wch  he  received  authority 
to  execute  in  his  calling,  but  by  ye  gift  he  meaneth  the 
gift  of  ability,  by  wch  the  Minister  is  enabled  to  pforme 
more  or  lesse  in  ye  act  of  his  execution,  wch  gift  we  must 
needs  acknowledge  to  be  the  gift  of  God,  but  yet  such  a 
gift  as  the  ptie  is  supposed  to  bring  with  him  and  not 


48     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

then  to  receive  it  at  ye  time  of  his  ordination:  but  he 
simplie  attributing  all  to  the  gift  of  ability  plainly  denied 
the  non-preaching  Minister  to  be  a  minister  by  ordination, 
but  by  God's  terrible  providence  (for  yl  was  his  distinction) 
such  an  one  as  God  might  sett  over  his  people  in  his  anger 
and  heavy  displeasure,  but  not  in  mercy. 

"A  Second  collection  was,  That  reading  was  not 
preaching.  If  he  had  said  it  had  not  been  interprtation, 
none  would  have  gainsayd  or  opposed  him;  but  his  mean- 
ing was  as  we  did  gather  it,  as  though  reading  were  not 
one  of  ye  meanes  yl  God  hath  appointed  for  man's^  salva- 
tion. His  proof  was  Amos  8.  n,  where  God  threatens 
a  famine  of  hearing,  wch  text  he  ignorantly  understood 
of  ye  famine  of  preaching  and  interpreting  only. 

"A  3d  collection  was  That  Non-residencie  was  utterly 
unlawfull.  To  this  purpose  he  abused  a  place  in  yc 
Prophet  where  God  reproveth  the  idol-Prophet  for  leav- 
ing his  place  and  substituting  such  an  one  in  his  roome  as 
never  had  calling  from  God  to  execute  in  ye  calling  of  a 
Prophet.  This  kinde  of  Non-residence  I  think  was  never 
maintained  by  any  Xtian,  neither  doe  I  thinke  any 
delinquent  in  this  kinde  in  all  or  nation,  and  go  (sic)  to 
small  purpose  was  his  allegation. 

"A  4th  collection  was  he  maintained  it  was  not  lawfull 
to  let  the  Sabbath  passe  without  2  sermons,  because 
Timothie  must  be  instant  in  season  and  out  of  season. 
And  strongly  did  he  maintaine  unseasonable  preaching 
even  now  in  these  or  dayes,  wn  the  seasonable  course  is 
noe  wayes  interrupted,  nay  \v°  all  the  seasonable  occa- 
sions are  not  taken.  For  I  doe  not  heare  that  any  of  his 
tribe  will  preach  upon  any  holy  day. 

"Many  other  things  were  delivered  by  him  not  worth 
recording,  as  this,  That  by  ye  order  of  Deacons  in  ye  bible 
is  understood  none  other  office,  but  y*  w011  we  now  adayes 
call  collectours  for  ye  poore,  as  likewise  by  governours 
in  his  text  he  understood  onely  church-wardens. 

"The  cause  of  this  young  mans  erring  thus  I  cannot 


THE    PURITAN    FATHERS    49 

thinke  to  be  eyther  pride  or  profit  or  wilfulnesse,  but 
rather  ignorance — /or  bis  education  was  [erased]  bis 
authors  be  is  most  beholding  to  (I  understand)  they  are  oj 
ye  newest  stamp  and  the  place  of  bis  dwelling  stands  better 
affected  to  this  way  then  the  contrary" 

We  have  next  a  quaint  description  of 
the  curious  Sunday  afternoon  service  con- 
ducted in  those  days  in  Boston  Church;  and 
the  writer  of  the  account  compassionates  the 
parishioners,  as  well  he  may,  on  its  tedious 
and  protracted  character.  For  there  were 
prayers  with  psalms  after  the  lessons;  the 
inevitable  sermon  two  hours  long  came  be- 
tween more  psalms,  one  at  each  end;  then 
the  parish  clerk  called  out  the  children  to 
be  catechised;  next  a  long  prayer  by  the 
minister  of  the  town,  followed  by  ques- 
tions "out  of  a  catechism  of  his  own  mak- 
ing"; and  then  two  more  hours  were  occupied 
in  explication  of  questions  and  answers.  So 
that  the  framer  of  the  report  sets  down  his 
opinion  that  if  they  keep  the  same  tenor  all 
the  year  their  afternoon  worship  will  be  five 
hours  long,  "where  to  my  observation  there 
were  as  many  sleepers  as  wakers,  scarce  any 
man  but  sometime  was  forced  to  wink  or 
nod."  The  text  of  the  report  concerning  this 
elongated  afternoon  service  follows : 

"VII.  —  Observations  concerning  the  Sundayes  Ser- 
vice in  ye  Afternoon  at  Boston. 
"  In  ye  Sunday  Afternoone 
"(i)  they  have  praiers  wth  Psalms  after  ye  lessons: 


i 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

"(2)  After  ye  2nd  lesson  a  psalme  being  sung  the 
preacher  of  the  town  bestowes  2  howers  in  a  sermon; 

"  (3) ;  After  his  sermon  a  psalme  likewise  being 
sunge,  the  clerke  of  ye  parish  calls  on  certaine  families 
for  their  youth  to  be  catechized  every  one  of  which  as 
they  stand  dispersed  in  the  congregation  answer  alowd 
as  they  use  to  do  at  a  Sessions  Here  Sir; 

"  (4)  After  this  calling  the  Minister  of  the  Towne  makes 
a  long  praier; 

"(5)  His  praier  being  done,  he  turnes  himself  to  the 
boy  who  must  give  him  his  first  answer,  and  soe  to  the 
second  and  third,  etc.,  for  he  knows  beforehand  every 
boy's  station  that  answers  him.  By  ye  way,  the  ques- 
tions he  moves  are  out  of  a  Catechism  of  his  own  making, 
and  not  out  of  that  in  the  book  of  Common  Prayer; 

"(6)  This  being  done,  he  spends  two  howers  more  in 
ye  explanation  of  these  his  own  questions  and  answers, 
soe  that  they  keep  the  same  tenour  all  the  yeare  which 
they  did  when  we  were  with  them;  their  afternoone 
worship,  as  they  used  to  terme  it,  wil  be  five  howers, 
where  to  my  observation,  there  was  as  many  sleepers 
as  wakers,  scarce  any  man  but  sometime  was  forced 
to  wink  or  nod." 

Utterly  intolerable  as  such  a  protracted  service 
would  be  to  a  modern  congregation,  it  suited 
the  taste  of  that  age,  at  least  the  Puritan  section 
of  it.  Religious  exercises  of  equal  length  were 
far  from  uncommon.  On  special  occasions, 
such  as  fast  days,  they  were  of  more  tremendous 
length  still.  Philip  Henry,  father  of  Matthew 
Henry  the  commentator,  was  used  on  fast  days 
to  enter  the  pulpit  at  nine  in  the  morning  and 
never  to  stir  out  of  it  till  about  four  in  the 
afternoon,  spending  the  whole  of  those  seven 
hours  in  praying  and  expounding  and  singing 


THE   PURITAN   FATHERS 

and  preaching,  to  the  admiration  of  all  that 
heard  him.  John  How,  Cromwell's  chaplain, 
was  almost  equally  unsparing  of  himself  and  his 
hearers  on  these  occasions.  He  began  at  nine 
with  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  prayer;  read  and 
expounded  Scripture  for  three-quarters  of  an 
hour;  prayed  for  an  hour;  preached  for  another 
hour;  and  then  prayed  for  half  an  hour.  These 
exercises  brought  him  to  half-past  twelve,  when, 
beginning  to  feel  exhausted,  he  descended  from 
the  pulpit  and  took  a  little  refreshment  while 
the  public  sang.  At  a  quarter  to  one  he  was 
in  the  pulpit  again  and  prayed  an  hour  more, 
and  preached  for  another  hour,  and  then  with  a 
prayer  of  half  an  hour  at  about  a  quarter  past 
three  he  concluded  the  service. 

When  the  spiritual  faculties  were  strung  up 
to  such  an  unnatural  tension  is  it  at  all  aston- 
ishing that  the  reaction  was  equally  violent,  and 
that  in  a  revolt  against  religious  despotism  all 
that  was  noblest  and  best  in  Puritanism  —  as 
exhibited  in  such  a  lovely  character  as  John 
Cotton  —  was  swept  away,  with  its  pettiness 
and  its  tyranny,  in  the  current  of  the  nation's 
hate,  and  that  the  gross  license  of  the  Restora- 
tion should  have  succeeded  the  gloomy  fanati- 
cism of  the  Protectorate?  Perhaps  the  evil  was 
already  past  a  remedy  at  the  time  this  memorable 
Visitation  was  held.  Certainly  Bishop  Neile 
was  not  the  physician  to  heal  it. 

About  this  time  Mr.  Cotton  married  Eliza- 
beth, sister  of  the  Rev.  James  Horrocks,  a  noted 


52     THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 

Lancashire  minister.  It  was  soon  after  his 
marriage  that  he  found  he  "could  not  digest  the 
ceremonies"  of  the  Church,  and  his  noncon- 
formity gave  him  trouble  with  the  Court  at 
Lincoln;  out  of  which  he  was  helped  by  faithful 
and  astute  Thomas  Leverett,  his  friend  through 
much  misfortune.  For  a  while  Cotton  was 
silenced;  but  Mr.  Leverett  "so  insinuated  him- 
self" with  one  of  the  Proctors  of  the  Superior 
Court,  to  which  the  Vicar  was  advised  to  appeal, 
that  "he  swore  Mr.  Cotton  was  a  conformable 
man,"  and  he  was  restored  to  Boston.1  There 
he  laboured  on  for  nearly  twenty  more  years, 
and  his  ministry  was  marvellously  successful, 
judged  by  his  friends. 

1  In  the  quaint  language  of  an  early  biographer,  "  He  found  himself 
healed  of  his  ecclesiastical  bronchitis,  and  restored  to  the  use  of  his 
voice  in  the  pulpit." 


AN   EPISODE   OF    BOSTON    HISTORY 
MUTILATION     OF     THE     TOWN'S 
MACES  — ATHERTON    HOUGH 
AS    IMAGE-BREAKER 


IV 


AN    EPISODE   OF   BOSTON   HISTORY  — 
MUTILATION      OF      THE      TOWN'S 
MACES  —  ATHERTON     HOUGH 
AS   IMAGE-BREAKER 

A  deed  of  dreadful  note. 

—  SHAKESPEARE,  Macbeth 

TATE  papers  of  the  reign  of  James  I.  pre- 
served at  the  Record  Office  —  documents 
which,  like  the  Lincoln  manuscript  treat- 
ing of  Bishop  Neile's  Visitation  in  I6I4,1  have 
escaped  the  notice  of  the  local  historian  —  serve 
to  give  us  a  clearer  insight  into  the  state  of 
feeling,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  in  Boston  at  a 
period  when  it  was  so  largely  influenced  by  the 
Puritan  spirit  of  the  times.  They  deal  with  the 
alleged  act,  which  has  been  briefly  referred  to 
earlier  in  these  pages,  of  treason  and  disloyalty 
to  the  throne  in  the  cutting  off  the  crosses  from 
the  King's  arms  upon  the  maces  belonging  to 
the  Mayor  and  Corporation  and  usually  carried 
before  that  body  on  Sundays  and  festival  days 
when  they  attended  worship  at  the  parish 
church.  The  discovery  caused  a  great  hubbub, 
and  it  really  looked  a  very  serious  affair  indeed. 
Information  having  been  given  by  one  David 

1  An  abridged  copy  of  this  document  is  also  in  the  British  Museum. 
Addl.  MSS.  5853,  ff.  249  sq. 


56     THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

Lewis  to  the  Lords  of  the  Privy  Council,  a  Com- 
mission was  issued  to  Mr.  Anthony  Irby,  one  of 
the  Masters  in  Chancery,  and  to  Mr.  Leonard 
Bawtree,  Sergeant-at-Law,  bearing  date  the 
twenty-third  day  of  March,  1621,  in  the  nine- 
teenth year  of  his  Majesty's  reign,  and  afterwards 
a  second  Commission  to  the  Solicitor  General 
dated  May  18  in  the  same  year,  authorising 
them  to  examine  into  the  case  and  report  thereon. 
The  information,  as  shown  in  one  of  their  replies, 
was  "That  the  Maior  of  Boston,  Mr.  Thomas 
Middlecote,  by  himselfe  or  some  others  by  his 
appointment  or  consent  had  cutt  off  the  cross 
from  the  mace  and  caused  yt  to  be  carried  bejore 
him  soe  dejaced " ;  such  act  being,  according  to 
one  Abraham  Browne,  who  was  among  the  wit- 
nesses examined,  "very  evil  done  and  a  danger- 
ous matter,"  "a  felony e  or  treason  because  yt 
was  a  defacinge  of  the  imperiall  crowne,"  an 
opinion  in  which  the  Privy  Council  seem  to  have 
concurred,  judging  by  the  importance  they 
attached  to  the  deed  and  the  efforts  they  made 
to  discover  the  doer  of  it. 

On  the  issue  of  the  first  of  these  Commissions, 
the  examiners  appear  to  have  taken  the  evi- 
dence of  ten  persons,  among  them  the  two 
sergeants-at-mace,  the  two  maidservants  of  the 
Mayor,  an  Alderman,  and  a  churchwarden;  and 
the  result  of  their  investigations  is  thus  stated  in 
their  report,  dated  April  7  in  the  same  year: 

"To  Ityfie  your  Honora  wee  have  taken  many  exami- 
nacons  of  div'se  psonnes  and  made  what  inquire  wee 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    57 

possiblye  cann  whereby  we  fmde  theare  be  twoe  sortes 
of  maces  in  the  towne  of  Boston,  the  one  a  lesser  wth 
only  his  Maties  armes  ingraven,  usually  and  ordinarilye 
caryed  by  the  Serjeants,  the  other  greater  with  the  ball 
and  crosse  on  the  toppe  only  caryed  before  the  Maior  to 
the  Church  on  Sundayes  and  Thursdayes  and  solomn 
tymes.  That  uppon  the  first  day  of  ffebruarye  beinge 
Thursdaye  the  Maior  having  bene  at  Church  those  maces 
weare  brought  home  whole  and  safe  and  layd  in  the 
Maior's  house  in  the  hall  windowe  next  the  street  as  they 
were  usuallye,  but  there  negligently  left  by  the  sergeants 
untill  dynner  tyme  next  daye,  being  Frydaye.  In  wch 
meane  tyme  the  toppes  of  the  crosses  onely  were  cutt  off 
from  both  the  maces,  the  two  crosse  barrs  thereof  remayn- 
ing  intyre:  and  soe  by  one  of  the  mayde  servants  put 
into  the  cases  and  caryed  into  the  chamber  wthout  any 
notice  or  knowledge  thereof  given  by  her  to  the  Maior 
her  master,  and  soe  rested  untyll  the  Sundaye  morninge 
followinge,  at  wch  tyme  beeing  brought  down  the  ser- 
geiante  espyed  it:  whereuppon  both  the  Maior  and  his 
wife  were  much  moved  and  angrye  at  the  fait,  but  the 
sermon  bell  then  ringinge  and  the  Maior  then  going  out 
of  his  house  to  the  church,  intending  to  examine  yt  after 
dynner  as  he  did,  went  on  and  had  them  soe  caryed  the 
Thursdaye  and  Sundaye  after  before  hym.  But  as  soone 
as  the  Goldsmyth  of  Boston  who  was  then  at  Lynn  Martt 
came  home  he  caused  the  same  to  be  mended  before  any 
complaints  made  to  his  Matie  or  yr  honors,  and  before 
he  that  did  complayne  did  come  from  home:  but  by  wbome 
or  for  what  end  or  cause  the  toppes  of  those  crosses  were 
soe  cut  off  we  cannot  find  oute  or  perceive,  nor  that  the 
Maior  was  in  any  waye  privye  or  consenting  thereto 
being  a  man  well  deserving  in  his  Maties  service  in  the 
countrye,  wherein  he  is  a  commissioner  of  the  peace. 
And  soe  wee  humbly  rest  yor  honore  to  command." 

The  result  of  this  first  Commission  did  not, 
as  it  seems,  allay  the  suspicions  of  the  Privy 


1 


58     THE   ROMANTIC  STORY   OF 

Council,  or  satisfy  them  of  the  loyalty  and  inno- 
cence either  of  the  Mayor  or  the  inhabitants 
generally,  especially  as  the  witnesses,  accord- 
ing to  a  further  statement  of  the  informant 
Lewis,  had  been  tampered  with  by  the  Mayor, 
and  also  by  Mr.  Irby  the  Commissioner,  who 
was  moreover  a  representative  of  the  town  in 
Parliament. 

In  the  Domestic  Papers  of  the  same  reign, 
Vol.  1 20,  No.  77,  we  have  an  amusing  account 
of  this  supposed  tampering,  where  one  William 
Hill  states  that  the  said  Lewis  "sayed  y*  when 
Mr.  Srjeant  Bawtree  did  examine  div'se  of  the 
examinates  to  any  materiall  pointe,  Mr.  Irby 
would  answere  before  ye  examinate  and  say 
'Thou  knowest  nothing  of  this  businesse/  and 
yf  any  examinate  did  answeare  any  thing  wh h 
he  tooke  to  be  materiall,  he  would  then  say, 
'Hould  thy  peace,  ffoole/  so  y  Mr.  S'jeant 
Bawtree  found  fault  w  him  for  soe  doeing." 
Also  "That  Mr.  Maior  did  attend  in  the  house 
during  all  the  tyme  of  the  examinacon  of  the 
examinates  and  did  conferr  w  every  one  or  the 
most  of  them  imediately  before  they  went 
to  be  examined  and  also  after  they  came  from 
being  examined.  That  Mr.  Irby  came  downe  to 
Mr.  Maior  and  advised  him  privately  to  direct 
one  Rich.  Westland  imediately  before  he  went 
to  be  examined."  It  would  appear  also,  from 
certain  notes  to  these  Domestic  Papers,  that 
there  was  a  suspicion  that  the  informant  Lewis 
had  been  himself  bribed  to  withhold  information 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


and  compromise  the  matter  in  favour  of  the 
Corporation;  for  an  entry  says  that  "Mr.  Anty 
Ingoldsby,  prson  of  ffishtofte,  a  verie  inward 
friend  of  the  Maior,  told  Lewis  (he  being  desirous 
to  borrow  some  money  of  the  said  Ingoldsby) 
that  he  would  fetch  him  some  from  the  Maior." 
A  further  entry  states  the  nature  of  a  communi- 
cation in  Mr.  Tilson's  shop  to  Mrs.  Jenkinson 
and  others  by  Lewis,  which  was  that  "Having 
pformed  the  pte  of  a  faithfull  servant  towards 
his  maister  (the  King),  hewoulde  now  doe  what 
service  he  coulde  for  the  Corporacon  of  Boston"; 
and  a  third  entry  speaks  of  "  Lewis,  his  receivinge 
of  ffive  pounds  of  Camock  at  London,  lykewise 
his  sending  to  one  Springe  for  ffortye  shillings 
and  a  letter,  which  had  been  sente  by  the  saide 
Springe  to  him  to  London  to  bear  his  charges 
downe";  the  above-named  persons  Cammock 
and  Spring  having,  according  to  another  entry, 
been  sent  to  London  "to  p'cure  him  to  desist 
in  his  loyall  service." 

Under  these  circumstances  a  second  Commis- 
sion was  issued  addressed  to  the  King's  Solicitor 
General,  and  an  examination  holden  as  on  the 
former  occasion,  the  same  witnesses  for  the  most 
part  appearing,  with  two  or  three  others,  among 
whom  was  the  Mayor  himself.  But  the  result 
was  as  before,  a  perfect  vindication  of  the 
Mayor's  character  against  every  imputation  of 
disloyalty,  and  an  acknowledgment  on  the  part 
of  the  Commissioner  that  he  could  not  discover 
the  guilty  person.  "Upon  the  receite  of  this 


6o    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

letter,"  he  says  in  his  Report,  "I  forthwith  sent 
for  the  ptye  who  could  give  information  therein. 
Middlecote  himself  and  eleven  others  cae,  but 
David  Lewys  who  I  find  did  first  complaine  of 
the  misdeamo1  cae  not.  All  the  Test  I  have 
examined  and  have  sent  the  examinations  to  yr 
honr.  Out  of  them  all  I  cann  collect  nothinge 
which  cann  fixe  uppo  Middlecoate  but  a  prsum- 
tion  that  he  should  be  consenting  thereto  be- 
cause  the  maces  were  in  his  bouse.  On  the  other 
side  there  are  many  circumstances  which  seem 
to  excuse  him  of  this  foolish  and  peevish  fact, 
for  the  maces  were  carried  before  him  w  the 
crosses  before  this  accident  fell  out:  when  he 
first  prceaved  it,  he  was  or  seemed  to  be  much 
offended  thereat:  he  caused  the  crosses  to  be 
new  made  as  soon  as  the  goldsmith  retourned 
holme:  and  he  used  the  maces  afF  they  were 
mended  againe.  Yet  doubtless  I  bolden  it  was 
done  pposely,  whosoevr  was  the  actor  of  it. 
Soe  humbly  leaving  that  which  is  already  done 
and  what  is  fitt  to  be  further  done  to  yor  better 
judgement  or  to  the  further  direction  of  the 
Lords,  I  humbly  take  leave  and  rest  at  yor 
honors  service  ready  to  be  commanded."  The 
Report  is  signed  "Ro.  Heath,"  and  is  addressed 
"To  the  Right  Honble  Sr  George  Calvert,  Knight, 
Principall  Secretary  to  his  Matye." 

So  far,  therefore,  as  concerned  the  civil  aspect 
of  the  case,  the  result  of  the  investigation  was 
favourable  and  even  creditable  to  the  Mayor 
and  to  the  town.  But  the  affair  had  another 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    61 

side,  which  must  now  be  looked  into.  Boston 
was  at  this  time  deeply  imbued  with  the  spirit 
of  nonconformity  under  the  ministry  of  Mr. 
Cotton,  and  the  information  of  David  Lewis 
was  probably  directed  as  much  against  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  as  against  the  civil  — 
as  much  against  nonconformists  in  the  Church 
as  against  disloyalty  in  the  council  chamber. 
Apparently  it  was  one  of  those  many  attempts, 
one  of  which  was  successful  in  the  end,  to  drive 
Mr.  Cotton  from  his  office  and  check  the  prog- 
ress of  his  principles  in  the  place.  The  cross 
as  a  religious  symbol  being  especially  distaste- 
ful to  the  feelings  of  a  Puritan,  it  was  fair  to 
suppose  that  it  might  be  deemed  so  even  when 
employed,  as  in  the  present  case,  for  a  secular 
purpose,  and  as  a  badge  of  a  civil  office. 

In  this  view  the  evidence  of  some  of  the  wit- 
nesses examined  before  the  Commissioners  is 
exceedingly  interesting,  especially  that  of  the 
parish  clerk,  the  churchwarden,  and  the  Town 
Clerk,  Mr.  Coney,  Cotton's  brother-in-law.  The 
testimony  of  "John  Jenkinson,  blacksmithe, 
clerke,  and  sexton  of  the  Churche  of  Boston" 
is  thus  reported:  "Being  examined  he  saythe: 
yl  he  himself  did  not  cut  of  the  toppe  of  the 
crosses  fro  the  maces,  nethr  dotbe  knowe  whoe  did 
yt  nor  by  whose  appointm*  or  consent  yt  was 
done,  nor  did  ever  heare  whoe  did  it  savinge  y4 
he  hathe  heard  himeself  suspected  to  have  done 
yt."  And  "Atherton  Houghe  gentleman  one 
of  ye  churche  wardens  of  ye  towne  of  Boston 


y 


a 


62     THE   ROMANTIC   STORY  OF 

being  examined  sayeth  y*  he  nethr  did  cutt  off 
ye  toppe  of  ye  crosses  fro  ye  maces  nor  doth 
knowe  who  did  yt  nor  by  whose  consent  yt  was 
done  nor  was  privie  to  ye  doinge  of  yt.  But  be 
confessed  be  did  bejore  that  yere  break  of  ye  band 
and  arme  of  ye  picture  of  a  pope 1  (as  yt 
seemethe)  standing  over  a  pillar  of  the  outeside 
of  the  steeple  very  highe  aboute  the  middest  or 
mor  of  ye  steeple,  whch  hand  had  a  form  of  a 
church  in  yt,  whch  he  did  as  he  thought  by 
warr'  of  ye  injunctions  made  primo  of  Queene 
Eliz :  willing  all  images  to  be  taken  oute  of  the 
walls  of  churches :  and  for  yt  he  hard  that  some 
of  the  towne  had  taken  notes  of  suche  pictures 
as  were  in  ye  outside  of  ye  churche." 

This  confession  is  valuable  as  showing  that 
a  certain  amount  of  the  mutilation  of  churches 
is  attributable  to  private  individuals,  acting  as 
they  thought  under  the  sanction  of  the  law. 
The  popular  idea  which  conveniently  throws  all 
the  blame  of  such  actions  on  the  shoulders  of 
Oliver  Cromwell  and  his  soldiery  is  not  quite 
fair  and  just.  That  they  did  do  much  injury 
is  unquestionable,  but  these  mutilations  had 
probably  been  going  on  through  many  years 
at  the  hands  of  amateur  iconoclasts  like  Mr. 
Atherton  Hough. 

The  evidence  of  the  Town  Clerk,  Mr.  Coney, 
is  equally  interesting  and  significant,  because  it 

1  The  obnoxious  image  was  nothing  more  dreadful  than  a  figure  of 
good  St.  Botolph,  the  church's  patron  saint.  After  weathering  the 
centuries  and  surviving  a  fall,  it  still  stands  on  a  column  on  the  south 
side  of  the  tower. 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

STATUE  OF  ST.  BOTOLPH,   MUTILATED  IN   1620 
BY  ATHERTON  HOUGH 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    63 

clears  entirely  the  vicar,  Mr.  Cotton,  of  any 
complicity  in  the  offence  itself  or  sympathy  with 
the  motives  which  might  have  been  supposed  to 
lead  to  it.  Being  examined,  Mr.  Coney  said 
"That  he  hath  herd  the  crosses  of  the  two  maces 
usually  carried  before  the  Maior  of  Boston  were 
in  hellary  terme  last  cutt  off,  this  examinant 
being  then  at  the  terme  at  London  and  soe  cann 
not  tell  who  cutt  or  broke  them  off,  nor  could 
ever  learne  since  who  did  it  or  p*  cured  it  to  be 
done.  But  he  saith  that  after  his  retourne 
holme,  he  hearing  a  report  of  what  had  been  done 
and  hearing  that  one  David  Lewys  was  gone 
up  to  London  with  a  prpose  to  complaine  to  his 
Maty  of  this  misdemeanor,  he  this  examinant 
being  desirous  to  make  peace,  the  rather  for 
that  the  suspected  Vicar  was  this  examinant's 
brother  in  lawe,  he  of  his  owne  mind  wthout  the 
privity  of  any  other  man  moved  Mr.  Bennett 
the  Customer  at  Boston"  —  the  Controller  of 
Customs  for  the  port  —  "about  a  Iettr  to  be 
sent  to  Lewys  to  dissuade  him  fro  such  com- 
plaint, and  he  inclining  thereto,  this  examinant 
did  drawe  a  letter  to  be  sent  to  the  said  Lewys: 
and  Mr.  Doctor  Worship,  Mr.  Dr.  Browne, 
Mr.  Bennett  and  Mr.  Barfoote  did  subscribe 
their  names  thereto,  and  this  examinant  sent 
the  same  to  Lewys,  but  it  cae  not  to  his  hande 
because  he  was  coe  out  of  London  before  the 
messenger  was  coe  theather.  He  saith  further 
that  the  Vicar  of  the  towne  Mr.  Cotton  of  this 
examinant's  knowledge  did  condemn  the  doing  oj 


64     THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


the  said  Jact  and  he  never  herd  any  one  speak  in 
justification  oj  it:  and  Mr.  Cotton  said  in  this 
examinant's  bearing  that  they  might  as  well  rejuse 
the  King's  coyne  because  crosses  were  on  it  as 
Jorbidd  the  crosses:  and  therefore  this  examinant 
is  psuaded  that  Mr.  Cotton  never  did  conyv  at 
the  cutting  of  those  crosses." 

So  that  Mr.  Cotton  came  through  the  business 
without  hurt,  and  that  Mr.  Middlecott  suffered 
no  harm,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  was 
knighted  some  time  prior  to  September,  1625, 
when  he  is  called  Sir  Thomas  Middlecott.  He 
was  Town  Clerk  1602-14  and  Mayor  once  be- 
fore the  episode  we  have  been  studying,  in  1613. 
Anthony  Irby  preceded  Richard  Bellingham  in 
the  recordership  of  Boston;  from  1614  to  1620  he 
shared  the  representation  of  the  borough  in 
Parliament  with  Leonard  Bawtree  his  co-Com- 
missioner; and  in  1621  he  succeeded  Dr.  Browne 
as  Judge  of  the  Admiralty  Court  at  Boston. 
Thomas  Barefoot  was  Vice- Admiral  in  1602. 
Leonard  and  John  Cammock  were  prominent 
townsmen  and  mayors  of  their  day. 


CHURCH  LIFE  IN  BOSTON  — THE  LIN- 
COLNSHIRE MOVEMENT  —  FAITH 
AND    FLIGHT  OF   COTTON 


CHURCH  LIFE  IN  BOSTON— THE  LIN- 
COLNSHIRE  MOVEMENT  —  FAITH 
AND  FLIGHT  OF  COTTON 

Perplex' 'd  in  Jaitb,  but  pure  in  deeds, 

At  last  be  beat  bis  music  out. 

There  lives  more  Jaitb  in  honest  doubt, 
Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds. 

—  TENNYSON,  In  Memoriam 

OHN  COTTON  had  enemies  as  well  as 
friends  in  Boston;  but  they  prevailed  not 
against  him.  His  hospitality  was  a  by- 
word among  men ;  his  house  was  filled  with 
students,  some  of  them  from  Holland  and  Ger- 
many, who  sat  at  the  feet  of  a  new  Gamaliel, 
and  there  were  "taught  according  to  the  perfect 
manner  of  the  law  of  the  fathers";  and  people 
resorted  to  the  town  from  miles  around  to  hear 
him  preach. 

He  was  not  a  heroic  figure,  this  John  Cotton. 
"He  was  of  medium  stature,  and  inclined  to 
corpulency."  But  the  fascination  of  his  per- 
sonality is  sufficiently  accounted  for.  "His 
voice,"  says  the  biographer,  "was  not  loud, 
but  clear  and  distinct,  and  was  easily  heard  in 
the  most  capacious  auditory.  His  complexion 
was  fair,  sanguine,  clear;  his  hair  was  once 
brown,  but  in  his  later  years  white  as  the  driven 


68     THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

snow.  In  his  countenance  was  an  inexpressible 
sort  of  majesty,  which  commanded  respect  from 
all  that  approached  him."  The  portrait  matured 
with  years  but  the  Boston  picture,  as  far  as 
we  can  realise  it,  is  pleasant  to  contemplate. 

Cotton  had  a  good  friend  in  Dr.  Williams, 
now  of  Lincoln  —  the  same  bishop  who  years 
after,  when  John  had  been  in  America  for 
nearly  a  decade,  wrote  to  Nicholas  Ferrers, 
"You  see  the  times  grow  high  and  turbulent,  and 
no  one  knows  where  the  rage  and  madness  of 
them  may  end;  I  am  just  come  from  Boston, 
where  I  was  used  very  coarsely."  But  those 
days  were  not  yet.  Williams  was  at  this  time 
basking  in  the  favour  of  James  I,  and  having  the 
King's  ear,  he  spoke  a  word  into  it  for  John 
Cotton;  and  the  result  was  that  he  was  allowed 
to  go  on  without  interruption,  despite  his  non- 
conformity. Poor  Samuel  Ward,  minister  of 
Ipswich,  could  not  understand  it.  "Of  all  men 
in  the  world,"  he  moaned,  "I  envy  Mr.  Cotton 
of  Boston  most,  for  he  doth  nothing  in  way  of 
conformity,  and  yet  hath  his  liberty;  and  I  do 
everything  that  way,  and  cannot  enjoy  mine." 
Plainly,  he  had  not  a  bishop  with  the  King's 
ear! 

It  is  really  surprising,  considering  the  severity 
of  the  times,  that  Cotton  should  have  enjoyed 
so  much  liberty  during  the  twenty  years  he  was 
Vicar  of  Boston.  The  views  he  held  and  openly 
expressed  were  highly  dangerous,  for  did  he  not 
teach  that,  according  to  the  Scripture,  bishops 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    69 

were  appointed  to  rule  no  larger  a  diocese  than 
a  particular  congregation,  and  that  the  keys 
of  ecclesiastical  government  were  given  by  the 
Lord  to  each  separate  church?  He  maintained 
that  neither  ministers  nor  people  were  subject 
to  the  jurisdiction  of  cathedral  bodies.  "Which 
made  me,"  he  says,  "then  to  mind  not  only  a 
neglect  of  the  censures  of  the  Commissary 
Court  (which  bred  not  a  little  offence  to  them 
and  disturbance  to  myself),  but  also  to  breathe 
after  greater  liberty  and  purity,  not  only  of 
God's  worship,  but  of  Church  estate." 

Arising  out  of  this  attitude  of  the  Puritan 
vicar  we  have  the  astonishing  fact  that  within 
the  larger  parish  community  a  gathered  church 
was  set  up,  some  scores  of  pious  persons  in  the 
town  forming  themselves  into  an  evangelical 
church-state  by  entering  into  covenant  with 
God  and  with  one  another  "to  follow  after  the 
Lord  in  the  purity  of  His  worship."  This  wider 
liberty  may  have  been  possible  because  John 
Williams,  ^  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  from  1621  on- 
wards, was  a  man  who  had  himself  considerable 
leaning  to  Puritan  modes  of  thought,  and,  like 
his  successor,  Dr.  Laney,  "could  look  through 
his  fingers";  and  who,  moreover,  being  for  the 
first  five  years  of  his  appointment  Lord  Keeper 
of  the  Privy  Seal,  left  his  diocese  during  that 
period  pretty  much  to  itself. 

Cotton's  objections  to  the  ceremonies  of  the 
Church  were  for  a  long  time  rooted  and  com- 
plete. It  was  in  the  episcopate  of  Dr.  Moun- 


70    THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

tain,  subsequent  to  1617,  that,  when  suspended 
on  special  complaint  made  against  him  to  the 
King,  he  refused  to  save  himself  —  refused  also 
proffered  preferment  —  by  yielding  "to  some 
conformity,  at  least  in  one  ceremony,  at  least 
once."  By  request  he  explained  his  doubts 
about  kneeling  at  the  sacrament  to  Dr.  Moun- 
tain and  the  Bishop  of  Salisbury  at  Westminster. 
He  did  so  freely,  and  his  evident  sincerity  won 
him  sufficient  sympathy  to  secure  his  restitu- 
tion. So  far  from  being  unkindly  dealt  with, 
he  was  treated  with  quite  unusual  leniency. 
Mountain's  successor,  Dr.  Williams,  showed 
him  even  greater  indulgence;  but,  as  jealous 
eyes  were  set  on  the  bishop  himself,  in  1625  he 
called  Cotton's  proceedings  in  question. 

A  letter  in  the  small  and  beautiful  handwrit- 
ing of  the  Vicar,  sent  in  reply  to  Dr.  Williams' 
remonstrance,  is  still  in  existence  which  places 
in  a  strong  light  the  Christian  simplicity  and 
candour  of  Cotton's  character,  and  is  of  im- 
portance as  showing  that  his  opinions  in  regard 
to  ceremonies  had  undergone  some  modifica- 
tion. The  writer  reminds  the  bishop  that,  when 
his  cause  first  came  before  him,  he  "wisely  and 
truly  discerned  that  my  forbearance  of  the 
ceremonies  was  not  from  wilful  refusal  of  con- 
formity, but  from  some  doubt  in  my  judgment, 
and  from  some  scruple  in  conscience,"  and  so 
granted  him  time  "to  consider  further  of  these 
things,  for  my  better  satisfaction."  He  tells  his 
correspondent  that  his  patience  "hath  not  bred 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


in  me  any  obstinacy  in  mine  own  opinion,"  and 
says  he  has  of  late  seen  "the  weakness  of  some 
of  those  grounds  against  kneeling  which  before 
I  esteemed  too  strong  for  me  to  dissolve." 

An  ingenious  argument  employed  against 
him  had  been  that  the  ceremonies  he  doubted  of 
were  "nowhere  expressly  forbidden  in  Scrip- 
ture." This  apparently  made  an  impression  on 
Cotton;  anyway  he  avows  his  reluctance  to  set 
up  his  own  view  against  "the  received  judgment 
of  so  many  reverend  fathers  and  brethren  in  the 
church."  He  assures  the  bishop  that  the  in- 
dulgence allowed  him  has  not  stiffened  him  "in 
any  private  conceit";  and,  defending  himself 
against  a  charge  of  having  "emboldened  our 
parish  to  inconformity,"  he  goes  on  to  make  a 
statement  which  throws  an  interesting  light  on 
the  church  life  of  the  period  in  Boston. 

"The  truth  is,  the  ceremonies  of  the  ring  in  marriage, 
and  standing  at  the  Creed,  are  usually  performed  by 
myself,  and  all  the  other  ceremonies  of  surplices,  cross 
in  Baptism,  kneeling  at  the  Communion,  are  frequently 
used  by  my  fellow-minister  in  our  church,  and  that  with- 
out disturbance  of  the  people.  The  people  on  Sabbaths, 
and  sundry  other  festival  days,  do  very  diligently  and 
thoroughly  frequent  the  public  prayers  of  the  Church 
appointed  by  authority  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 
Neither  do  I  think  that  any  of  them  ordinarily,  unless 
it  be  upon  just  occasion  of  other  business,  absenteth 
himself.  It  is  true  indeed  that,  in  receiving  the  Com- 
munion, sundry  of  them  do  not  kneel,  but  as  I  conceive 
it,  and  as  they  express  themselves,  it  is  not  out  of  scruple 
of  conscience,  but  from  the  multitude  of  communicants, 
who  often  so  do  throng  one  another  in  this  great  congre- 


THE 


ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


gation  that  they  can  hardly  stand,  much  less  kneel,  one 
by  another.  Such  as  do  forbear  kneeling,  out  of  any 
doubt  in  conscience,  I  know  not  —  how  very  few  they  be, 
I  am  sure  in  comparison,  nullius  numeri.  That  divers 
others  come  from  other  parishes  for  that  purpose  (to 
receive  without  kneeling)  is  utterly  unknown  to  me,  and 
I  am  persuaded,  utterly  untrue.  All  the  neighbouring 
parishes  round  about  us,  ministers  and  people,  are  wholly 
conformable.  Once  indeed,  as  I  heard,  one  of  the  in- 
habitants of  a  neighbouring  parish,  coming  to  visit  his 
wife,  who  then  nursed  a  gentleman's  child  in  our  town, 
did  here  communicate  with  us;  and  whether  from  his 
not  kneeling,  or  from  some  further  cause,  I  know  not; 
but  as  I  heard,  the  Court  being  informed  of  him,  did  pro- 
ceed severely  against  him.  But  otherwise  the  man,  as 
I  have  since  been  certified,  hath  always  been  used  to  receive 
kneeling,  both  before  and  since.  Yet  his  case  being 
further  bruited  abroad,  when  well  known  might  easily 
breed  such  a  suspicion,  and  afterwards  a  report,  which 
in  time  might  come  to  your  Lordship's  ears,  that  divers 
did  come  from  other  parishes  to  us  for  this  purpose  to 
receive  inconformably.  But  your  Lordship  is  wise, 
easily  discerning  between  a  report  and  evidences." 

Cotton,  we  see,  admits  only  conformity  him- 
self to  the  use  of  the  ring  in  marriage  and  stand- 
ing at  the  Creed;  the  other  ceremonies  which 
he  names  were  observed  by  his  fellow-minister. 
He  disproves  here  the  charge  of  inciting  the 
laity  to  nonconformity;  but  we  have  his  admis- 
sion, in  the  autobiography  which  has  been 
already  quoted,  that  "when  God  opened  my 
eyes  to  see  the  sin  of  conformity,  my  neglect 
thereof  was  at  first  tolerated  without  disturb- 
ance and  at  length  embraced  by  the  chief 
and  greatest  part  of  the  town."  The  writer 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

TATTERSHALL  CASTLE 


Photograph  by  Hopkinson,  Billingborough 

SEMPRINGHAM  MANOR  HOUSE 
(Modern  residence  on  the  old  site) 


THE   PURITAN  FATHERS     73 

concludes  his  letter  to  the  bishop  by  asking  to 
be  allowed  "yet  further  time  for  better  consider- 
ation of  such  doubts  as  yet  remain  behind." 
Signing  himself  "Your  Lordship's  exceedingly 
much  bounden  orator,  John  Cotton,"  he  adds 
to  the  address  on  the  outside  "This  with 
speed." l 

The  clouds  were  now  darkening  fast  in  Church 
and  State,  and  the  gathering  storm  brought  to- 
gether the  friends  who,  being  in  Lincolnshire  in 
1627,  fell  into  discourse  about  the  New  England 
scheme  with  such  practical  result.  These  meet- 
ings took  place  in  Boston  itself,  or  at  Tattershall 
or  Sempringham,  Lord  Lincoln's  family  seats, 
and  were  the  resort  of  Vicar  Cotton  and  Thomas 
Dudley;  Isaac  Johnson  and  John  Humphrey; 
Simon  Bradstreet  (son  of  the  stout  Puritan 
minister  of  Horbling,  who  gave  so  much  trouble 
to  the  Ecclesiastical  Courts),  next  to  Dudley  the 
Earl's  confidant  and  adviser;  Richard  Belling- 
ham,  the  Recorder  of  Boston;  and  Thomas 
Leverett  and  Atherton  Hough,  Boston  leaders 
who,  with  Dudley,  this  year  joined  with  Lord 
Lincoln  in  resisting  the  King's  forced  loan,  for 
refusing  to  subscribe  to  which  the  Earl  was  sent 
to  the  Tower. 

Roger  Williams,  the  ardent  Welshman,  chap- 
Iain  to  Sir  William  Masham,  was  also  identified 
with  the  Lincolnshire  movement,  and  he  speaks 
of  riding  with  John  Cotton  "and  one  other  of 
precious  memory,  Master  Hooper,  to  and  from 


el 


ROMANTIC  STORY 


Sempringham,"  Roger  as  they  rode  explaining 
why  he  could  not  use  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  as  Cotton  did,  and  Cotton  pleading  the 
excuse  that  he  "selected  the  good  and  best 
prayers  in  his  use  of  that  book,  as  Sarpi  did  in 
his  using  of  the  Masse-book."  We  have  here  a 
first  glimmering  of  that  after-controversial  con- 
flict between  the  irrepressible  Williams  and 
the  rulers  of  the  New  Boston.  But  that  stage 
was  not  yet,  and  Cotton,  we  see,  was  already 
conciliatory. 

To  these  conferences  came,  two  years  later, 
John  Winthrop  from  Groton  in  Suffolk,  en- 
countering by  the  way  the  inconveniences  of 
travel  in  those  days;  for  he  says  of  the  journey 
"My  brother,  Downing,  and  myself  riding  into 
Lincolnshire  by  Ely,  my  horse  fell  under  me  in 
a  bog  in  the  fens,  so  as  I  was  almost  to  the  waist 
in  water."  And  the  good  man  appreciated  his 
peril;  for  he  says  "The  Lord  preserved  me  from 
further  danger  —  blessed  be  His  name."  It 
was  shortly  after  this  adventuring,  with  Tatter- 
shall  or  Sempringham  as  the  goal,  that  Winthrop, 
with  eleven  others,  including  Sir  Richard  Sal- 
tonstall,  Isaac  Johnson,  and  Thomas  Dudley, 
signed  the  compact  at  Cambridge  giving  the 
control  of  affairs  to  those  members  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  Company  who  were  going  out  to 
the  Colony,  of  which  Winthrop  was  elected  the 
first  resident  governor. 

John  Cotton  had  many  troubles  and  trials. 
There  were  things  from  which  the  indulgence  of 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


bishops  and  the  kindly  mediation  of  friends 
could  not  protect  him.  These  were  sickness 
and  death.  All  through  the  year  1631  he  was 
prostrated  with  the  ague.  This  interval  of 
ministerial  inactivity  was  passed  with  Lord 
Lincoln  at  Tattershall.  While  also  the  Earl's 
invalid  guest,  Mrs.  Cotton  died  of  the  malady 
which  had  stricken  down  her  husband;  and  we 
read  of  a  sum  of  money  "paid  to  Mr  Mayor 
for  so  much  expended  by  him  about  M™ 
Cotton's  funeral." 

A  year  later  Mr.  Cotton  remarried.  On  April 
25,  1632,  at  Boston  Church,  "John  Cotton, 
cleark"  took  to  himself  in  wedlock  Sarah  Story, 
a  widow,  who  had  been  a  great  friend  of  his 
first  wife's;  but  they  were  fated  not  to  remain 
long  together  in  Boston. 

The  end  of  Cotton's  ministry  in  the  town  was 
brought  about  in  an  indirect,  but  none  the  less 
effectual,  manner.  What  the  schemes  of  his 
enemies  failed  to  achieve  was  accomplished  at 
last  by  accident.  Designs  for  molesting  him 
for  his  nonconformity  had  so  far  been  frustrated 
by  the  vigilance  and  discretion  of  Thomas 
Leverett;  but  about  this  time  a  "dissolute 
person"  in  Boston,  who  had  tasted  the  cor- 
rectional quality  of  the  local  magistrates  and 
bore  them  a  grudge  in  consequence,  sought  to 
revenge  himself  by  informing  against  them  in 
the  High  Commission  Court.  He  declared  that 
they  did  not  kneel  at  the  Sacrament  or  observe 
other  ceremonies  enjoined  by  law.  Told  that 


76    THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

he  must  put  in  the  minister's  name,  the  in- 
formant replied  "The  minister  is  an  honest 
man  and  never  did  me  any  wrong."  Under 
pressure,  however,  he  put  in  Mr.  Cotton's  name, 
and  letters  missive  were  at  once  despatched  to 
summon  the  Vicar  before  the  Court. 

Much  exercised  in  mind,  Cotton  took  counsel 
of  various  friends  as  to  whether  he  ought  to 
stand  or  flee.  Among  others  he  put  the  case 
before  that  quaint  and  witty  old  Puritan,  John 
Dod,  of  Fawsley,  who  answered  suo  more,  "I 
am  old  Peter,  and  therefore  must  stand  still 
and  bear  the  brunt;  but  you,  being  young  Peter, 
may  go  whither  you  will."  The  choice  was 
between  flight  and  imprisonment,  and  Cotton 
chose  the  former.  But  he  called  together  the 
heads  of  the  congregation  and  "offered  them  to 
bear  witness  to  the  truth  I  had  preached  and 
practised  amongst  them,  even  unto  bonds,"  if 
they  conceived  that  to  be  the  right  course  for 
him  to  adopt.  They  did  not,  but  persuaded 
him,  as  Cotton  wrote  when  more  happily  placed, 
from  New  England,  "to  withdraw  myself  from 
the  present  storm  and  to  minister  in  this  country 
to  such  of  their  town  as  had  been  sent  before 
thither,  and  such  others  as  were  willing  to  go 
along  with  me  or  to  follow  after  me."  l  So  he 
resigned  the  living  of  Boston  and  fled. 

This  was  in  May,  1633.     We  know  how  Lord 

1  Letter  dated  Boston,  N.  E.,  December  3,  1634,  from  Mr.  Cotton 
to  a  minister  at  home,  stating  the  reasons  for  his  and  Mr.  Hooker's 
removal  to  America. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    77 

Dorset,  who  dropped  into  the  church  when  at 
Boston  on  fen  drainage  business  and  was  won  by 
Cotton's  preaching,  kept  the  promise  he  then 
made  and  exerted  himself  with  the  powers  on 
his  behalf,  and  how  the  vengeful  Laud  —  who 
more  than  once  was  heard  to  exclaim  "Oh  that 
I  might  meet  with  Mr.  Cotton!" — frustrated 
his  amiable  efforts;  how  Lord  Dorset  informed 
Cotton  that  if  he  had  been  guilty  of  "drunken- 
ness, uncleanness,  or  any  such  lesser  fault"  he 
might  have  been  pardoned,  but  that  as  he 
was  guilty  of  Puritanism  and  nonconformity  the 
crime  was  unpardonable ;  and  how  consequently 
he  advised  him  to  flee  for  his  safety. 

Before  leaving,  Cotton,  broken  in  health  and 
spirits,  penned  that  touching  letter  resigning  his 
charge  into  his  bishop's  hands.  As  to  how  he 
has  spent  his  time  and  course  he  must  ere  long 
give  account  at  another  tribunal,  but  he  takes 
leave  to  say  to  his  lordship  that  the  bent  of  his 
course  had  been  "to  make  and  keep  a  threefold 
Christian  concord  amongst  the  people,  between 
God  and  their  conscience,  between  true-hearted 
loyalty  and  Christian  liberty,  and  between  the 
fear  of  God  and  the  love  of  one  another."  He 
honours  the  bishops  and  esteems  many  hundreds 
of  the  divines  of  the  Church,  but,  while  prizing 
other  men's  judgment  and  learning,  their  wis- 
dom and  piety,  in  things  pertaining  to  God  and 
His  worship,  he  feels  he  must  live  by  his  own 
faith,  not  theirs.  Therefore,  since  he  cannot 
yield  obedience  of  faith,  he  is  willing  to  yield 


Im 

liAl 

1 

I 


THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


patience  of  hope.  His  Master,  he  says,  "who 
began  a  year  or  two  ago  to  suspend  (after  a 
sort)  my  ministry  by  a  long  and  sore  sickness, 
the  dregs  whereof  still  hang  about  me,  doth 
now  put  a  further  necessity  upon  me,  wholly  to 
lay  down  my  ministry  and  freely  to  resign  my 
place  into  your  Lordship's  hands.  For  I  see 
neither  my  bodily  health  nor  the  peace  of  the 
Church  will  now  stand  with  my  continuance 
there."  So  he  asks  the  bishop  "to  accept  my 
place  as  voyd,"  and  to  "admit  thereto  such  a 
successor  as  your  Lordship  shall  find  fit  and  the 
patron  (which  is  the  Corporation  of  Boston) 
shall  present  to  you  therefor."  He  adds  that 
"the  congregation  is  great  and  the  church  duties 
many,  and  those  many  times  requiring  close 
attendance." 

Cotton  had  very  good  reason  for  saying  this. 
In  his  time  trusts  imposed  on  the  Corporation 
by  the  Charter  of  Philip  and  Mary  and  the 
endowment  of  Alderman  Fox  were  disregarded, 
the  staff  of  priests  being  reduced  from  three 
to  two.  Cotton,  in  1614,  was  voted  an  extra 
allowance,  "part  of  which  was  heretofore  em- 
ployed towards  the  maintenance  of  a  preacher 
to  assist  the  Vicar,  which  is  now  saved."  He 
always  preached  at  the  election  of  Mayor,  and 
when  that  functionary  was  installed  into  office, 
and  when  at  home  at  the  funerals  of  the  principal 
people;  and  in  fact  was  doing  double  duty  most 
of  the  time  he  was  at  Boston.  That  his  ministry 
was  successful  we  have  abundant  testimony. 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Corporation  Record  Book 

ENTRY  OF  MAY  28,   1613 


"Agreed  that  Mr.  Cotton  the  viccar,  having  been  at  great  charge  with  the  repayrynge 
of  the  viccaridge,  and  being  about  to  take  his  degree  of  Batchelor  of  Divinity  and  un- 
provided of  money  in  respect  of  the  great  charge  he  hath  been  at  in  repayring  the  said 
viccaridge,  and  being  also  a  man  of  very  good  desertes,  shall  have  given  him  as  a  gratuity 
by  this  house  towards  the  charges  he  shall  be  inforced  unto  about  the  taking  of  his 
degree"  the  sum  of  £20,  which  was  taken  out  of  the  treasury  and  delivered  to  him. 


Photographed  fi 


Boston  Corporation  Record  Book 

ENTRY  OF  APRIL  22,   1614 


"  Mr.  Cotton  the  viccar  being  a  worthye  man  and  well  desert 
and  life,  and  his  maintainance  of  the  viccaridge  very  small  an 
him,  it  is  therefore  agreed  that  he  shall  have  for  the  further  aw, 
the  sum  of  £30  payed  him  yearlye  during  the  pleasure  of  this  ho 
land?,  "part  whereof  was  hitherto  employed  towards  the  maint< 
assist  Mr.  Cotton,  and  now  is  saved." 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


Mr.  Pond  assures  us,  in  his  Notes  on  the  Norton 
Memoir,1  that  a  great  reformation  was  wrought 
in  the  town  by  John  Cotton.  "Profaneness  was 
extinguished,  superstition  was  abandoned,  and 
religion  was  embraced  and  practised  among  the 
body  of  the  people;  yea,  the  Mayor  and  most 
of  the  magistrates  were  now  called  Puritans." 

Hutchinson  in  his  "History  of  Massachusetts " 
says  of  Cotton  that  "  Many  strangers,  and  some 
too  that  were  gentlemen  of  good  quality,  resorted 
unto  Boston,  and  some  removed  their  habita- 
tions thither  on  his  account,  whereby  the 
prosperity  of  the  place  was  much  promoted." 
The  historian  speaks  of  Mr.  Cotton's  hospitality, 
"wherein  he  did  exceed  all  that  I  ever  heard 
of.  His  heart  and  his  door  were  ever  open  to 
receive  all  that  feared  God,  especially  godly 
ministers,  and  ministers  driven  into  England  by 
the  persecutions  then  raging  in  Germany;  these 
he  most  courteously  sustained." 

Mr.  Whiting,  one  of  his  biographers,  describes 
Cotton's  incredible  labours  and  says:  "He  was 
distinguished  for  candour,  meekness  and  wisdom, 
and  was  exceedingly  beloved  of  the  best."  His 
teaching,  however  much  it  may  have  offended 
some,  found  no  lack  of  appreciation;  for,  in  the 
records  of  successive  gratuities  and  augmenta- 
tions of  the  living,  Cotton  is  referred  to  as  "a 
man  of  very  great  desertes"  and  as  "a  worthy 
man,  and  well  deserving  both  for  his  learning  and 


Norton's  "Life  and  Death  of  Cotton,"  reissued  with  Notes  by 
Enoch  Pond  in  1834. 


80    THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

life";  while  his  pains  in  preaching  and  cate- 
chising are  declared  to  have  been  great.  We 
know  he  was  famous  as  an  expositor;  he  was 
midway  on  a  second  exposition  of  the  Bible 
when  eventually  his  life  closed. 

At  an  assembly  held  in  the  old  Guildhall  at 
Boston  on  July  22,  1633,  before  the  Mayor, 
Aldermen,  and  Common  Council,  two  letters 
were  laid  before  the  house:  one  from  John 
Cotton  yielding  up  his  place  of  being  vicar,  which 
"his  friends,  this  house"  accepted,  and  one  from 
John,  Lord  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  by  the  hands  of 
Thomas  Coney,  the  Town  Clerk,  stating  that 
on  July  8  the  said  Lord  Bishop  did,  at  his 
house  in  the  College  of  Westminster,  accept 
Mr.  Cotton's  resignation  of  his  vicarage.  So 
ended  the  most  memorable  ministry  Boston  has 
ever  known. 

We  may  be  sure  that  that  was  an  affec- 
tionate leave-taking  which  Cotton  took  of  the 
only  other  child  of  his  parents,  Mary,  wife  of 
Thomas  Coney,  whose  duty  it  now  was  to  tell 
the  Corporation  that  the  bishop  had  declared 
the  vicarage  void.  Coney  and  Mary  Cotton 
were  married  in  1618,  and  a  year  later  their 
son  John  was  born.  For  many  of  its  eventful 
years  Thomas  Coney  was  conspicuous  in  the 
public  affairs  of  Boston.  He  was  steward  of 
the  borough  in  1613,  when  he  acted  as  Town 
Clerk  for  Sir  Thomas  Middlecott  during  his 
mayoralty;  and  he  became  Town  Clerk  himself 
in  1620,  and  so  continued  for  twenty-seven 


1 


t^-jM-'    *4  V^if 7*7 .-'  *H-U  ^ 

S«2il  r''""-          fcr»*«*,|4  r1^..  ri  4«»..~ 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Corporation  Record  Book 

THE  RESIGNATIONS  OF  JOHN  COTTON,  ATHERTON  HOUGH, 
AND  THOMAS  LEVERETT 


brother-in-law)  that  on  July  8th  Mr.  Cotton  had  resigned  the  vicarage  to  the  bishop, 
who  had  accepted  the  same  and  declared  the  vicarage  to  be  void,  and  signified  to  the 
Mayor  and  burgesses  that  they  might  when  they  pleased  "present  some  able  person 
thereunto";  which,  as  the  next  entry  shows,  they  at  once  did  by  electing  Mr.  Anthony 
Tuckney  thereto. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS     81 

years,  or  to  within  two  years  of  his  death,  being 
"much  employed  in  the  business  of  the  Cor- 
poration." His  son,  John,  stepped  into  his 
official  shoes.  Then  there  was  Cotton's  cousin, 
Dr.  Anthony  Tuckney  (son  of  the  Kirton  min- 
ister), who  succeeded  him  as  Vicar,  and  at  the 
time  of  his  flight  had  been  Mayor's  preacher  at 
Boston  four  years,  following  Mr.  Edward  Wright, 
appointed  in  1618.  Tuckney,  like  Cotton,  had 
resided  in  the  Earl  of  Lincoln's  family,  and  was 
his  correspondent  after  the  exodus  from  Boston. 
The  resignation  was  followed  by  the  issue  of 
writs,  and  if  Mr.  Cotton  meant  to  leave  the 
country  it  must  be  at  once.  Escape  was  not 
easy.  State  agents  were  vigilant,  and  here  was 
no  mean  quarry,  if  only  they  could  lay  hands 
on  him.  But  the  fugitive  was  too  quick  for 
them.  He  reached  London,  and  there,  for  a 
space,  was  concealed  by  John  Davenport,  Vicar 
of  St.  Stephen's.  Then,  changing  his  dress  and 
adopting  for  the  time  being  a  fictitious  name, 
he  made  his  way  to  the  Downs,  where  by  arrange- 
ment he  went  on  board  the  Griffin,  a  ship  of 
some  three  hundred  tons.  That  was  in  the 
middle  of  July,  two  months  after  his  resigna- 
tion was  written  and  a  week  from  the  date  of  its 
formal  acceptance.  With  him  were  Thomas 
Leverett  and  Atherton  Hough,  Aldermen  of 
Boston,  who  resigned  at  the  same  time  that 
Cotton  did,  and  then  joined  him  in  London. 
They  brought  with  them  their  families,  and 
Mrs.  Cotton  was  of  the  company,  too. 


82     THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


The  sailing  of  the  Griffin,  with  her  full  load 
of  nearly  three  hundred  passengers,  was  a  skil- 
fully managed  affair.  She  out-manoeuvred  the 
officers  of  the  High  Commission  Court,  who  evi- 
dently suspected  the  truth  and  were  lying  in 
wait  for  her  at  the  Isle  of  Wight,  where  they 
expected  she  would  touch.  But  she  spread  her 
canvas  wings  and  sailed  straight  away  for  the 
West,  passing  to  the  south  of  the  island;  and, 
if  the  hirelings  of  the  Court  beheld  her  at  all, 
the  sight  would  not  comfort  them  much. 

It  was  in  the  year  of  Cotton's  flight  that  the 
poems  of  George  Herbert  were  published,  and 
there  is  ground  for  the  conjecture  that  the  pro- 
posed emigration  of  Cotton  and  other  eminent 
ministers  suggested  the  poet's  well-known  lines  : 

Religion  stands  on  tiptoe  in  our  land, 
Ready  to  pass  to  the  American  strand. 

This  too  was  the  year  when  the  Privy  Council 
order  was  issued  to  stay  certain  ships  in  the 
Thames  in  which  distinguished  opponents  of 
the  Crown  were  supposed  to  be  embarked  for 
New  England. 


1 


VI 


OLD   BOSTON    IN   COTTON'S   DAY 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

ST.  BOTOLPH'S,  BOSTON,  ENGLAND 


OLD    BOSTON    IN   COTTON'S   DAY 


St.  Botolpb's  Toum !  Far  over  leagues  oj  land 
And  leagues  of  sea  looks  forth  its  noble  tower. 

—  LONGFELLOW'S  POEM 

OHN  COTTON  would  feel  a  natural  pride 
the  magnificent  building  in  which  he 
ministered  at  Old  Boston;  that  vast  pile, 
with  its  majestic  tower  rising  to  nigh  three 
hundred  feet  above  the  level  fen,  to  be  seen  over 
a  third  of  the  county  and  from  Norfolk  across 
The  Wash;  crowned  with  a  graceful  octagonal 
lantern  whose  light  and  height  were  a  mark  for 
travellers  inland  as  well  as  for  mariners  at  sea: 
a  fire-capped  pillar  to  guide  at  night,  a  looming 
cloud  to  direct  by  day;  a  glorified  type  of  the 
English  parochial  church,  the  most  impressive 
in  the  kingdom,  surpassing  in  the  grandeur  of 
the  architecture  of  its  tower  any  English  cathe- 
dral; an  abiding  memorial  of  the  great  period 
of  mediaeval  prosperity,  built  on  the  site  of  the 
old  monastery  founded  by  St.  Botolph,  "in  a 
wilderness  unfrequented  by  men,"  and  later 
destroyed  by  the  Danes. 

High  up  in  the  lofty  tower  was  in  Cotton's 
time  a  huge  clock-bell,  shaped  like  a  saucer  and 
weighing  some  four  thousand  pounds.  It  was 
suspended  in  the  tower  lantern  above  the  leaden 


86    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

roof  of  the  belfry,  "for  the  better  and  more 
audible  sound  thereof.'*  Upon  it  were  struck 
the  hours  of  the  day  and  the  holy  hours  of  the 
Church,  and  it  could  be  heard  for  six  or  seven 
miles  around.  On  this  bell  were  many  quaint 
old  verses,  which  John  Cotton  may  have  read 
if  ever  he  climbed  so  high;  but  they  are  lost  to 
posterity.  At  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  the 
ponderous  bell  was  rung  to  call  all  who  had  to 
perform  it  to  their  daily  toil;  and  at  eight  each 
night  its  deep  notes  told  that  the  day's  work 
was  done,  and  summoned  to  well-earned  repose. 
In  the  second  year  of  Cotton's  coming  to  Boston 
one  John  Tomlinson  was  admitted  a  freeman 
gratis  on  condition  that  during  his  life  he  would 
keep  the  clock  and  chimes  in  order,  and  "all  the 
ironwork  and  wires  belonging  to  the  same," 
and  the  chambers  and  the  bell-lofts  clean. 
This  is  the  first  mention  of  the  clock  and  chimes 
found  in  the  local  records.  Two  new  bells  were 
hung  in  1617;  one  of  them  bore  the  admonitory 
verse : 

AH  men  that  heare  my  mourniful  sound, 

Repent  before  you  lie  in  ground. 

These  two  bells  remain  in  the  peal  to  this  day. 
The  great  "saucer"  and  the  other  bells  then  in 
the  steeple  were  repaired  in  1627.  The  bells 
were  rung  from  the  stone  gallery  running  round 
the  second  story  of  the  tower  by  means  of  blocks 
and  pulleys  at  openings  in  the  belfry  walls. 

Let  us  enter  Cotton's  church,  through  the 
imposing   south   porch,    where   we   see   cut 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 

the  inner  arch  the  mark  which  the  bishop  at 
the  consecration  anointed  "with  chrism,  in  the 
form  of  a  cross."  Over  the  porch  was  a  room 
which  in  Cotton's  day  was  used  as  a  school  "for 
the  teaching  of  petty  scholars";  but  in  1635,  at 
the  request  of  his  successor,  Dr.  Tuckney,  it 
was  ordered  by  Archbishop  Laud,  when  on  his 
metropolitan  visitation  at  Boston,  to  be  turned 
into  a  parish  library.  It  was  the  irony  of  fate 
that  a  man  who  loved  intellectual  darkness 
rather  than  light,  and  who,  we  have  seen, 
crushed  the  liberty-seeking  Cotton's  last  hope 
of  escape  from  the  persecution  which  drove  him 
forth,  should  have  sanctioned  the  establishment 
of  the  first  free  library  at  Boston.  But  fate 
duly  adjusted  the  anomaly,  for  at  a  later 
date,  Archdeacon  Goddard  on  overhauling  the 
library  "threw  out  many  books  which  he  de- 
nominated trash."  Beyond  being  a  limited  liter- 
ary museum  it  has  served  no  useful  purpose ;  but 
a  lasting  monument  to  Cotton  and  his  work, 
keeping  alive  and  perpetuating  his  memory,  has 
been  reared  in  the  chapel  adjacent.  On  the 
wall  near  this  chapel  (which  so  long  served  as 
a  vestry,  but  is  now  transformed  and  used  for 
daily  service)  is  a  queer  old  painted  oak  board 
bearing  the  device  of  a  death's  head  with  a 
heart  in  the  mouth.  What  John  Cotton  thought 
about  it  can  only  be  surmised;  but  he  would 
not  quarrel  with  the  accompanying  lines,  which 
relate  to  one  Richard  Smith  who  died  in  1626 
(possibly  of  the  family  of  Nicholas  of  that  ilk, 


88     THE  ROMANTIC   STORY  OF 

who  gave  the  wrong  casting  votes  at  Cotton's 
election  as  Vicar),  and  if  whimsical,  savour  of 
the  versification  of  the  times  : 

My  corps  with  Kings  and  Monarchs  sleeps  in  bedd; 

My  soule  with  sight  of  Christ  in  Heaven  is  fedd: 

This  lumpe,   that  Lampe  shall  meete  and  shine  more 

bright 
Than  Phoebus  when  hee  streames  his  clearest  light. 

The  sun  at  midday,  if  that  is  what  was  meant, 
left  nothing  to  be  desired  in  the  way  of  metaphor; 
but  the  memorial  is  dingy  at  this  far-off  date, 
though  well  preserved. 

We  pass  into  the  great  church  itself,  lofty  and 
spacious  in  nave  and  aisle;  with  its  flat  panelled 
ceiling  and  painted  shields,  its  high-backed  pews 
and  wide  expanse  of  colour-washed  wall;  and  its 
seats  made  for  the  "Mayor  and  company"  in 
1 60 1,  which  in  1627  were  furnished  with  lock, 
keys,  and  bolt.  Its  "orgayne-Ioft"  stands 
"above  Mr.  Mayor's  quire"  across  the  chancel 
arch,  but  destitute  of  the  means  of  musical 
accompaniment,  because  twenty  or  more  years 
before  Cotton  came  "the  great  orgaynes,"  which 
may  have  been  disorganised  and  certainly 
offended  Puritan  taste,  were  directed  to  be 
sold  "for  the  benefit  of  the  church,"  and  even 
the  loft  itself  had  been  pulled  down,  but  the 
High  Commissioners,  on  suit  being  brought, 
saw  that  it  was  set  up  again.1  The  screen  of 

1  Years  later  the  organ-loft  was  removed  from  the  Parish  Church, 
and  strange  to  say  it  now,  or  part  of  it,  is  in  St.  Mary's  Roman  Catholic 
Church  at  Boston,  Mass. 


m 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

ALTAR  TOMB  OF  DAME  MARGERY  TILNEY 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

MISERERE  SEATS  IN  THE  CHOIR  STALLS 
Believed  to  date  Jrom  the  last  quarter  of  the  Fourteenth  Century 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS     89 

the  nave  separates  the  pews  from  the  great 
open  space  at  the  west  end,  the  town  arms  from 
over  the  gates  of  which,  with  their  fine  ironwork 
and  metal  woolpack,  now  adorn  the  entrance  of 
the  old  Grammar  School  yard.  The  hexagonal 
Elizabethan  pulpit  is  of  dark-coloured  oak,  with 
fluted  Ionic  columns,  semi-circular  arches  on 
pilasters,  rich  embossed  carving,  and  sounding- 
board  above  it  (now  gilded  and  standing  on  a 
pillar,  and  with  the  sounding-board,  for  long 
absent,  restored  at  the  Sexcentenary  celebration 
of  the  church),  where  Cotton  preached  his  ser- 
mons two  hours  long.  One  also  notes  the  altar 
tombs,  one  that  of  Dame  Margery  Tilney,  great- 
grandmother  of  Anne  Boleyn,  bearing  the  Tilney 
arms  and  with  the  effigy  upon  it  of  the  said 
Dame  Margery,  who,  as  Leland  quaintly  says, 
"layid  the  first  stone  of  the  goodly  steple"  of 
the  church,  and  "lyith  buried  under  it";  and 
wonders  at  the  chancel  with  its  double  row  of 
stalls,  with  canopies  and  misereres,  perhaps  the 
finest  examples  extant  of  mercantile  religious 
munificence. 

There  is  nothing  more  curious  about  it  all 
than  the  connection  with  the  church  of  the 
Corporate  body  and  its  ordering  of  the  arrange- 
ments. Of  this  we  have  had  some  insight.  But 
fifty  years  before  Cotton's  appearance  the  Cor- 
poration were  busy  seating  themselves,  the 
Mayor  and  Aldermen  in  one  place,  and  the 
Common  Council  in  another,  and  the  fiat  went 
forth  that  "none  of  the  House"  should  "talk  in 


I 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

the  church,  to  the  ill  example  of  others."  Later 
they  were  to  sit,  not  in  the  quires,  but  "in  the 
loft  in  the  church."  When  Cotton  had  been 
gone  this  long  while,  we  find  this  wilful  but 
interesting  body  setting  aside  a  sum  to  pay  "for 
cloth  and  mending  the  Mayor's  seat,  which  was 
cut  off  and  stolen  away."  That  was  probably 
when  his  Worship  occupied  a  sort  of  dais,  pil- 
lared and  corniced,  against  a  column  of  the  nave 
facing  the  pulpit  opposite.  Then  their  wives 
were  introduced,  for  we  have  an  order  to  the 
Chamberlain  to  "line"  the  seats  "where  the 
ladies  of  the  aldermen  and  common-council  sit," 
and  the  Aldermen's  wives  are  called  "alderesses." 
They  appear  nevertheless  to  have  behaved 
themselves,  for  there  is  no  further  resolution 
probihiting  prattle  in  church. 

Externally,  the  church  had  a  different  ap- 
pearance in  Cotton's  day.  There  were  two 
buildings  adjoining  it  on  the  south  side,  one 
a  vestry,  originally  an  oratory  or  private  chapel, 
abutting  on  the  chancel  with  its  little  priests' 
door,  and  to  the  west  of  it  Taylor's  Hall;  while 
on  the  north  side  of  the  chancel,  near  the  stair- 
case leading  to  the  organ-loft,  was  another  old 
chapel,  and  at  the  west  end  of  the  aisle  stood  a 
charnel-house,  once  an  oratory.  These  excres- 
cences were  removed  in  the  next  century,  when 
the  churchyard  was  enlarged  to  the  southeast 
by  the  sweeping  away  of  the  town  gaol  and  the 
Ostrich  publichouse,  and  the  levelling  of  "  Half- 
crown  Hill,"  used  so  freely  for  the  burial  of  the 


THE   PURITAN  FATHERS    91 


poor  (at  half-a-crown  per  head)  that  the  rising 
mound  obstructed  the  lower  windows  of  the 
hostelry!  No  wonder  the  plague  raged  periodi- 
cally in  the  old  days.  Once  at  least  it  visited 
Boston  during  Cotton's  stay;  that  was  in  1625, 
when  the  Fair  usually  held  on  St.  James*  Day 
(July  25)  had  to  be  abandoned  for  fear  of 
spreading  the  contagion.  Bounding  the  church- 
yard on  the  water-side  to  the  west  was  Shoe- 
makers' Hall,  and  a  wharf  with  shops  and 
warehouses,  overlooking  the  swiftly  flowing 
Witham,  then  unchecked  by  the  modern  Grand 
Sluice. 

And  what  an  unassuming  place  was  the  old 
Vicarage,  where  Cotton  was  an  hospitable  host, 
and  where  the  students  gathered  to  profit  by 
his  teaching.  Standing  off  Wormgate  with  an 
entrance  from  the  churchyard,  beneath  the 
shadow  of  the  mammoth  tower,  the  modest 
manse  nestled  cosily  among  the  trees  of  the 
enclosed  garden-orchard.  One  can  picture  still 
the  timbered  and  tiled  brick  building  of  two 
stories  with  its  intersecting  beams,  its  case- 
ments glazed  with  diamond  panes,  hooded 
doorways,  peaked  gable,  pointed  attic  windows, 
and  short  squat  chimneys.  Within  the  par- 
sonage house  Cotton  would  in  his  idle  moments 
(if  he  ever  had  any)  make  an  antiquarian  study 
of  those  curious  arms,  carved  on  an  oaken  door 
and  a  panel  over  the  mantelpiece,  of  the  mitred 
abbot  of  Bardney,  who  had  owned  a  fishery  and 
more  solid  possessions  in  Boston  and  is  reported 


THE  ROMANTIC   STORY  OF 


to  have  helped  to  build  the  manse.  But  Cotton 
we  know  had  more  absorbing  studies.  Here  he 
read  the  Fathers  and  the  Schoolmen,  and  his 
Calvin  much  beloved,  finding  that  "he  that  has 
Calvin  has  them  all";  just  as  in  later  years  he 
delighted  to  sweeten  his  mouth  "with  a  piece 
of  Calvin"  before  he  slept.  Hard  by,  at  the 
"north  church  stile  in  Wormgate,"  stood  (and 
still  stands)  the  ancient  church  house,  then  the 
residence  of  the  Grammar  Schoolmaster  (doubt- 
less a  good  neighbour  and  familiar  friend), 
where  in  pre-Reformation  days  doles  collected 
for  the  purpose  were  distributed  to  the  poor 
and  needy.  Strange  to  say,  the  house  has  re- 
turned in  a  new  way  to  its  old  use,  for  it  is  a 
Poor-law  relieving  office  to-day.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  Vicarage,  forming  a  quadrangle,  was 
the  venerable  residence  of  the  Pacy  family, 
once  a  nunnery;  and  though  the  building  has 
long  since  disappeared,  you  may  still  see  pre- 
served near  its  site  the  same  stone  bust  of  a 
man  tugging  at  his  beard  that  leered  down  from 
its  niche  above  the  entrance  upon  John  Cotton 
when  perchance  he  passed  that  way. 

That  glorious  fabric  the  Parish  Church  took 
a  lot  of  maintaining,  and  the  wherewithal  was 
not  always  easy  to  find.  During  Cotton's 
ministry  work  of  a  kind  was  frequent  about  the 
chancel  and  other  parts;  but  resources  were 
very  limited,  and  in  1626  something  like  a 
crisis  arose.  In  that  year  it  was  found  that 
the  large,  spacious  and  magnificent  church  of 


From  an  old  Drawing 


THE  OLD  VICARAGE,  BOSTON,  ENGLAND 
Occupied  by  John  Cotton.     Taken  down  in  1850 


— 1  irtJiigg*  JJj 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

THE  OLD  CHURCH  HOUSE,  BOSTON,  ENGLAND 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    93 

St.  Botolph's"  was  "able  and  fit  to  contain  all 
the  whole  people  and  congregation  of  Boston," 
which  was  literally  the  truth,  for  the  inhabi- 
tants numbered  less  than  three  thousand.  The 
church  was,  however,  "in  so  great  need  of  re- 
pairs" that  the  people  "were  not  able  to  supply 
the  defect  thereof."  And  so  on  petition  Bishop 
Williams  authorised  the  pulling  down  of  the  small 
church  of  St.  John,  which  had  not  been  used 
for  two  hundred  years,  and  the  materials  thus 
obtained  were  used  for  repairing  Boston  Church. 
Some  of  the  timber  was  also  employed  in  patch- 
ing up  the  Town  Bridge,  which  in  this  year  was 
"in  great  decay"  and  in  danger  of  falling.  It 
was  the  successor  of  the  old  bridge  which  fell 
into  the  river  on  a  Sunday  in  March,  1556.  The 
mending  in  1626  was  of  little  use,  for  the  bridge 
had  to  be  taken  down  three  years  later,  and  while 
a  new  one  was  being  erected  passengers  were 
ferried  across  the  water  by  a  Corporation  boat; 
so  that  when  John  Cotton  hied  him  to  the  west 
side  of  the  town,  to  visit  parishioners  in  Gowt 
Street  or  Fordend  Lane,  he  would  have  to  use 
the  ferry-boat.  The  new  bridge  was  opened  in 
1631,  the  year  he  was  stricken  down  with  ague. 
We  can  picture  the  good  man  on  one  of  these 
pastoral  excursions  passing  the  straggling 
Market-place,  with  its  staithes,  its  "fish  stones" 
or  stalls,  and  its  Market  Cross  with  tall,  slender 
shaft,  approached  by  flights  of  steps  hard  by 
the  house  and  garden  footing  Gaunt's  Lane, 
whose  rents  Cotton  afterwards  enjoyed  for  life 


94     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

by  right  of  his  marriage  with  widow  Story.  The 
House  of  Assembly  on  the  river  side  of  the 
square  was  built  the  year  before  he  came  to 
Boston. 

The  "great  feasts  of  the  town"  of  which 
Cotton  has  spoken,  and  which  he  ornamented 
by  his  presence,  were  sumptuous  and  ceremo- 
nious entertainments  held  at  the  Guildhall, 
including  May  Day,  Lady  Day,  Admiralty 
Court,  Quarter  Sessions,  and  Court  Leet  or 
rent  day  dinners.  On  these  occasions  the  Cor- 
poration and  borough  officials,  with  such  guests 
as  the  Mayor  invited,  assembled  together;  and 
prominent  figures  were  the  Recorder,  the 
Marshal  of  the  Admiralty  and  the  Chamber- 
Iain,  the  sergeants-at-mace  and  the  sergeants- 
at-arms.  At  the  fairs  and  marts  the  Mayor 
and  his  company  were  escorted  by  a  dozen  at- 
tendants attired  in  a  species  of  military  garment 
or  loose  cassock  called  "  mandelions,"  having 
the  town's  arms  (three  ducal  coronets  on  a  sable 
shield,  supported  by  mermaids  ducally  crowned, 
with  crest  "on  a  woolpack,  a  ram  couchant") 
worked  upon  them  "in  yellow  sarsaeye";  and 
as  many  merchant  porters  in  the  warden's 
livery,  carrying  halberts;  with  four  constables 
to  assist  in  maintaining  order  and  preserving 
the  peace.  Then  there  were  the  paid  and  per- 
spiring musicians,  wearing  liveries  bearing  "the 
ancient  badge  of  cognizance";  and  we  may  take 
it  that  they  earned  their  salaries.  The  whole 
was  a  picturesque  display. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    95 

But  though  it  treated  Cotton  well  in  return 
for  his  beneficent  ministry,  Boston  had  at  this 
time  sorely  declined.  Five  years  before  Cotton 
came  it  petitioned  Parliament  to  be  placed  in 
the  list  of  "decayed  towns/'  with  the  evident 
object  of  escaping  inconvenient  exactions.  We 
have  no  proof  that  the  prayer  was  answered; 
and  eight  years  later,  in  1615,  we  find  the  town 
asking  for  relief  in  respect  of  a  levy  of  provisions 
for  the  Crown.  The  port,  we  are  told,  possessed 
"few  fishermen";  but  there  were  plenty  of 
dishmakers,  fret-workers,  weavers,  and  followers 
of  other  trades  in  the  borough. 

The  preceding  winter  had  been  very  severe, 
with  much  frost  and  snow  and  great  loss  of 
cattle  and  sheep,  and  early  in  1615  there  was 
a  disastrous  flood  "and  overflowing  of  the 
ground,"  though  this  was  not  so  bad  as  the 
visitation  of  I57I,1  when  the  district  was  devas- 
tated by  a  mighty  tempest  and  flood  and  next 
year  Elizabeth  granted  Boston  a  license  to 
export  grain  "for  the  relief  and  succour  of  the 
borough,  the  inhabitants  thereof  being  greatly 
impoverished  and  almost  utterly  declined,  as 
well  by  reason  of  the  scarcity  of  traffic  of  mer- 
chandise as  by  the  great  damage  and  hurt  hap- 
pened to  their  port,  bridge,  wharffs,  staithes, 
and  sea  banks  through  the  great  violence  and 
inundation  both  of  the  salt  and  of  the  fresh 
waters";  and  this  license  was  renewed  in  sub- 
sequent years.  Camden  said  of  Boston 

lThis  great  tide  was  the  subject  of  Jean  Ingelow's  noted  poem. 


\S 


96     THE   ROMANTIC  STORY 


1586  that  it  was  "handsomely  built,"  and 
"drives  a  considerable  trade."  Still  times  were 
hard,  for  in  1587,  as  the  records  tell  us,  because 
of  the  "great  dearth  and  hard  year,"  the  Mayor- 
elect  was  allowed  three-quarters  of  wheat  by  the 
Corporation  and  was  not  to  be  subject  to  a 
charge  "for  any  feastynges  or  dyet"  at  the  four 
sessions  of  the  peace,  "but  only  for  the  recorder 
and  four  justices,  and  the  town  clerk."  And 
so  the  evidences  of  scarcity  and  economy  con- 
tinue. But  the  town  picked  up  somewhat  be- 
fore Cotton  left  it.  There  came  the  mandate 
that  no  more  thatch  should  be  used  in  the  con- 
struction of  houses,  which  were  to  be  built  of 
timber,  stone,  and  tile;  and  in  1623  the  Corpora- 
tion ordered  "two  dozen  links  to  be  bought  for 
the  town,"  which  was  an  unmistakable  sign  of 
progress ! 

Things  at  one  time  were  very  different,  and 
Cotton  must  often  have  listened  to  the  story, 
handed  down  from  father  to  son,  of  that  great 
period  of  mediaeval  prosperity  which  Boston 
once  enjoyed.  As  early  as  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury the  famous  Hanseatic  League,  or  merchants 
of  the  Steelyard,  established  themselves  on  The 
Wash.  Formed  by  a  combination  between 
Hamburg  and  Lubeck  as  a  trading  Guild,  and 
including  within  a  century  no  fewer  than  sixty- 
six  cities  and  forty-four  other  confederates,  the 
League  was  at  first  no  more  than  an  associa- 
tion for  mutual  protection  against  piracy;  but 
ultimately  it  became  a  ring  of  the  most  gigantic 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


and  comprehensive  character,  with  offices  and 
warehouses  and  residences  in  all  the  chief 
centres  of  trade  in  England.1  The  League  had 
its  Steelyard  in  Boston,  and  many  of  its  members 
took  up  their  abode  in  the  town.  They  were 
popularly  known  as  "  Easterlings,"  either  be- 
cause they  came  from  the  country  lying  east 
of  Boston,  or  from  their  trade  being  renewed 
each  year  at  Easter;  and  they  bore  such  a  good 
character  for  honesty,  their  weights  being  just 
and  money  unsweated  and  unchipped,  that  it 
was  made  a  stipulation  that  debts  should  be 
paid  with  Easterling  coin,  and  hence  comes  our 
still  existing  word,  " sterling'*  money. 

Well,  Boston,  under  the  Easterlings,  became 
the  emporium  of  commerce  for  East  England; 
and  in  1205,  the  year  after  it  received  its  charter 
from  King  John,  Boston  paid  the  largest  amount 
of  the  tax  called  the  quinzeme  (a  fifteenth  part 
of  the  movable  goods  of  merchants,  taken  for 
the  use  of  the  State)  of  any  port  in  the  kingdom 
save  only  London.  Seventy  or  eighty  years 
later  we  find  Boston  paying  twice  as  much  duty 
on  chief  exports  as  London  did,  and  more  than 
a  third  of  the  entire  duty  paid  by  the  whole 
kingdom  on  these  goods;  while  in  another 
decade  it  was  one  of  the  nine  ports  from  which 
alone  wool  might  legally  be  exported.  During 
the  thirteenth  century  its  great  annual  Mart 


1  Until  1853  the  Steelyard  in  Thames  Street,  London,  remained  the 
property  of  the  Senates  of  Hamburg,  Bremen,  and  Lubeck,  who  held  it 
as  heirs  of  the  old  Hanseatic  League. 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


or  Fair,  to  which  the  marketing  world  flocked 
by  land  and  water,  sprang  into  existence.  And 
in  1369  the  Staple  was  removed  from  Lincoln  to 
Boston,  which  remained  a  Staple-town  until  the 
dissolution  of  the  religious  houses  and  mer- 
cantile Guilds  in  the  sixteenth  century  brought 
the  mediaeval  system  of  trading  to  a  close. 

But  long  before  that  time  its  prosperity  had 
waned.  Leland  gives  a  definite  cause  for  this. 
He  says  that  in  the  reign  of  Edward  IV  a  mer- 
chant of  Boston,  Humphrey  Littlebury,  killed 
an  Easterling  there,  and  the  Bostonians  behaved 
so  badly  about  it  that  the  Easterlings  in  disgust 
left  the  town  and  took  their  merchandise  else- 
where, so  that  in  his  time  (1530),  though  the 
Steelyard  houses  still  remained,  they  were  "little 
or  nothing  at  all  occupied."  There  were  no 
doubt  contributing  causes  to  this  decay.  Once 
the  recognised  waterway  to  the  east,  with  a 
river  navigable  up  to  Lincoln  and  connecting 
with  the  Trent  and  its  tributary  streams,  the 
channel  through  which  many  counties  poured 
their  produce  and  received  their  foreign  goods, 
Boston  had  now  lost  this  sea-carrying  monopoly 
owing  to  the  growth  of  other  ports  on  the  east 
coast  and  the  partial  diversion  of  commerce  to 
the  west.  Its  haven  and  outfall  also  were  in  a 
bad  state,  and  the  Charter  of  Admiralty  given 
it  by  Elizabeth  over  the  Norman  Deeps,  with 
the  power  of  levying  duties  and  other  privileges, 
did  little  to  improve  things,  until  we  see  the 
town  as  it  was  in  Cotton's  day.  But  the  place 


PURITAN  FATHERS      99 


of  a  community  in  history  does  not  depend  on 
the  amount  of  its  trade.  Boston  was  still  vigor- 
ous enough  to  become  a  mother  of  empire! 
And  for  that  matter  it  has  since  arisen  Phoenix- 
like  out  of  the  ashes  of  its  old  self  to  a  fair  height 
of  commercial  prosperity. 


VII 

COTTON'S    BOSTON    MEN  — THE   NEW 

LIFE  O'ER  SEAS  — PERSECUTIONS 

AND   PUNISHMENTS 


VII 

COTTON'S    BOSTON    MEN  — THE    NEW 

LIFE  O'ER  SEAS  —  PERSECUTIONS 

AND    PUNISHMENTS 

The  lantern  of  St.  Botolpb's  ceased  to  burn 
When  Jrom  the  portals  oj  that  cburcb  be  came 
To  be  a  burning  and  a  sbining  light 
Here  in  the  wilderness, 

—  LONGFELLOW,  The  New  England  Tragedies 

OHN  COTTON  on  his  way  out  to  the  West 
did  not  lack  good  company,  and  the  voyage, 
if  long,  was  the  less  lonely  on  that  account. 
*  He  had  his  wife  with  him,  and,  on  August  12, 
a  month  after  the  sailing,  his  first  child  was  born 
on  the  broad  Atlantic  Ocean;  it  was  a  son,  and 
they  gave  him  the  fitting  name  of  Seaborn.1 
Cotton  refused  to  baptise  the  infant  at  sea  be- 
cause, being  no  longer  the  minister  of  a  congre- 
gation, he  did  not  hold  himself  empowered  to 
administer  the  sacraments.  In  Winthrop's 
"History  of  New  England"  we  find  the  reason 
for  this  refusal  thus  set  forth:  "Not  for  want 
of  fresh  water,  for  he  held  seawater  would  have 
served:  i,  because  they  had  no  settled  congre- 
gation there;  2,  because  a  minister  hath 

1  On  the  outward  voyage  of  the  Mayflower,  thirteen  years  before,  a 
son  was  born  to  Stephen  Hopkins,  one  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  and  they 
called  him  Oceanus. 


YM 

m\ 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

power  to  give  the  seals  but  in  his  own  congre- 
gation." In  other  words  —  and  this  is  a  good 
example  of  the  conscientious  exactitude  which 
characterised  the  Puritan  period  —  Cotton  held 
that  the  priestly  office  ceased  with  the  severance 
of  the  pastoral  bond,  and  must  be  renewed  on 
the  acceptance  of  another  call;  nor,  until  so 
renewed,  could  the  individual  officiate  in  per- 
forming church  functions.  The  boy  accordingly 
was  named  only  after  his  father  had  been  in- 
stalled as  teacher  of  the  church  in  New  Boston, 
and  so  had  gained  the  right  to  baptise  him. 

Among  the  passengers  carried  by  the  Griffin 
were  many  friends,  including  men  who  had 
profited  by  Cotton's  counsels  and  shared  the 
anxiety  of  his  trials  at  Old  Boston.  There  was 
Thomas  Leverett,  of  whom  we  have  heard,  one 
of  an  old  Lincolnshire  family.  Leverett  served 
a  seven  years'  apprenticeship  to  Mr.  Anderson, 
a  Boston  tradesman,  and  on  October  29,  1610, 
he  was  married  to  Anne  Fisher  in  Boston 
Church;  and  the  baptisms  of  their  children 
entered  in  the  parish  registers  give  the  names 
and  dates  Jane  Leverett,  August  9,  1613; 
John  Leverett,  January  9,  1616;  and  Anne 
Leverett,  January  9,  1619.  John  accom- 
panied the  rest  of  the  family  on  this  momentous 
voyage,  and  rose  to  high  place  in  New  England, 
as  we  shall  see.  He  married  Hannah  Hudson, 
who  went  out  to  the  Colony  two  years  later,  in 
1635.  Jane  Leverett  married  Israel  Addington. 

Nine  years  after  marriage,  Thomas  Leverett 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Corporation  Kecord  ttook 

RECORD  OF  THE  APPOINTMENT  OF  THOMAS  LEVERETT  AS  CORONER, 
MAY  i,  1624 

"At  this  assembly  Mr.  Edward  Tillson,  Corroner  of  this  borough,  being  made  and 
chosen  Alderman  of  this  borough,  desireth  to  be  disengaged  of  the  said  place  and  hath 
yeilded  upp  the  same,  and  this  house  hath  accordingly  accepted  thereof  and  they  hate 
elected  and  chosen  Mr.  Thomas  Leneritt  to  be  the  Corroner  of  this  borough  in  the  room 
and  place  of  the  said  Mr.  Tillson,  whoo  is  to  vacate  the  said  office." 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Corporation  Record  Book 
RECORD  OF  THE  ADMISSION  OF  THOMAS  LEVERETT  TO  THE  FREEDOM 
OF  THE  BOROUGH,  JANUARY  18,   1618 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Corporation  Record  Book 

RECORD  OF  THE   ELECTION  OF  THOMAS  LEVERETT  TO  THE  TOWN 
COUNCIL,  MARCH  7,   1620 

"Also  at  this  assembly  Mr.  Thomas  Leverit  is  elected  one  of  the  Comon  Counsaitt, 
and  hath  taken  his  oath  acordinglie." 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Parish  Register 

RECORD  OF  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THOMAS  LEVERETT  TO  ANNE  FISHER, 

1610 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    105 

was  made  a  freeman  of  Boston.  In  the  follow- 
ing year,  1620,  he  was  elected  to  the  Common 
Council;  he  became  coroner  of  the  borough  in 
1624;  and  was  appointed  an  Alderman  in  1632. 
We  know  how  useful  he  was  to  John  Cotton  at 
Boston,  a  skilful  protector  and  faithful  friend 
always,  shrewd  and  successful  in  the  legal  busi- 
ness which  took  him  to  the  courts  on  his  Vicar's 
behalf. 

Another  passenger  in  the  Griffin  was  Ather- 
ton  Hough,  that  enthusiast  who  in  1620,  when  a 
churchwarden,  broke  off  the  hand  and  arm  of 
what  he  conceived  to  be  "the  picture  of  a  pope," 
but  what  in  reality  was  a  statue  of  St.  Botolph, 
on  a  tall  pillar  of  the  great  church  tower. 

Thomas  Leverett  and  Atherton  Hough  took 
up  their  freedom  of  Boston  together  in  1619. 
Mr.  Hough  was  elected  to  the  Council  later  the 
same  year;  he  was  made  an  Alderman  in  1627, 
and  the  next  year  became  Mayor.  In  the 
parish  registers  may  be  seen  the  record  of  his 
marriage,  on  January  9,  1618:  "Atherton 
Haulgh  and  Elizabeth  Whittingham,  widdow"; 
and  there  also  is  the  date  of  baptism  of  their 
son  Samuel,  November  23,  1621.  These  friends 
threw  up  their  official  appointments  without 
hesitation  in  order  to  accompany  Mr.  Cotton  to 
America.  Aldermen  in  these  days  are  of  all 
people  supposed  to  consider  their  own  town 
the  best  possible  dwelling-place.  Aldermen  of 
the  seventeenth  century  probably  thought  the 
same,  and  in  any  case  this  leaving  of  Old  Boston, 


106    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

with  its  ties  and  associations,  must  have  been 
a  wrench.  But  it  was  a  time  for  the  sundering 
of  bonds,  as  well  as  for  their  enforced  endurance. 
Atherton  Hough's  wife  and  young  son  were 
of  the  party.  Also,  if  history  speaks  truth,  was 
that  great  man  Richard  Bellingham,  afterwards 
Governor  Bellingham,  Recorder  of  Boston  from 
1625,  and  its  member  of  Parliament  from  1628, 
a  position  to  which  Old  Boston  elected  his 
father,  Francis  Bellingham,  in  1603.  Recorder 
Bellingham's  resignation  was  received  in  No- 
vember, 1633;  but  he  may  all  the  same  have 
gone  out  with  Cotton.  Allen  says  he  did  not 
sail  for  New  England  until  the  Allowing  year. 
Certainly  Winthrop  does  not  name  him  as 
being  one  of  Cotton's  fellow-passengers,  though 
he  may  have  been  among  the  other  men  on 
board  who  are  alluded  to  generally  as  "of  good 
estates."  However,  if  he  did  not  take  passage 
in  the  Griffin  he  followed  very  soon  after;  and 
once  in  the  new  country,  this  stern  and  upright 
man  became  a  power  in  the  land.  Allen's 
description  of  him  is  vague.  Bellingham,  he 
says,  was  "a  native  of  England,  where  he  was 
bred  a  lawyer."  This  is  not  very  informing. 
He  belonged  in  fact  to  Yorkshire;  but  his  rela- 
tives found  living  at  Kilby  near  Hull  at  a  later 
period  bore  the  old  Lincolnshire  name  of  Good- 
rick.  That  he  was  "bred  a  lawyer"  goes  with- 
out saying.  "It  was  always  mentioned  as  a 
part  of  Mr.  Bellingham's  character,"  wrote 
Hutchinson,  "that  he  hated  a  bribe."  This  is  not 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Corporation  Record  Book 

RECORD    BY    WHICH    ATHERTON    HOUGH    (SPELT    "HAULGH")    WAS 
"MADE  FREE"  OF  THE  BOROUGH,  MAY  22,  1619 

"And  hath  taken  his  oath  for  his  freedom,  together  with  his  oath  of  supremacie  and 
allegiance." 


/'< 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Corporation  Record  Book 

RECORD  OF  THE  ELECTION  OF  ATHERTON  HOUGH  ON  AUGUST  21, 
1619,  TO  THE  COMMON  COUNCIL 

"  In  the  room  and  place  of  Robert  Jenkinson  deseased,  and  hee  hath  taken  his  oath 
acordinglie." 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Parish  Register 

RECORD  OF  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  ATHERTON  HOUGH  TO  ELIZABETH 
WHITTINGHAM,   1618 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS     107 

more  than  might  have  been  expected  of  one  who 
was  Recorder  of  Boston  and  for  some  time  its 
representative  in  Parliament. 

Not  that  he  was  set  beyond  temptation.  The 
emoluments  of  his  legal  office  were  not  great. 
In  1625  the  salary  of  the  Mayor's  cook  at 
Boston  was  raised  to  £6/13/4,  and  this  princely 
sum  equalled  the  fee  which  the  Recorder  was 
paid  yearly  out  of  the  manor  of  Hallgarth.  But 
Bellingham  came  off  best  in  the  end,  for  the 
office  of  cook  was  abolished  in  1629.  One 
would  be  loath  to  accept  these  disbursements  as 
evidence  of  the  relative  value  of  the  learned 
Recorder  and  the  Mayor's  cook  in  the  eyes  of 
the  old  Bostonians.  But  they  are  full  of  sug- 
gestion; even  as  the  Bostonians  themselves 
loved  to  be  filled  with  the  good  things  of  the 
table.  Pecuniarily,  the  Mayor  was  not  so 
easily  satisfied  as  the  Recorder,  for  his  salary 
in  1629  was  reduced  to  "fifty  pounds,  with 
capons,  and  sugar  rents,  and  weathers"; 
which  no  doubt  was  esteemed  a  great  hardship, 
seeing  that  five  years  before  the  Mayor  was 
allowed  eighty  pounds,  "besides  the  ordinarie 
allowance  of  wine,  sugar,  capons  and  weathers," 
which  was  simply  lordly!  But  times  were  evi- 
dently bad  when  the  salary  and  the  perquisites 
of  the  civic  office  suffered  diminution,  for  in 
that  year,  1629,  his  Worship  was  "tyed  to  make 
the  feast  at  May-day  only,"  to  which,  however, 
he  had  to  invite  "the  Aldermen,  Common 
Council,  the  Recorder,  the  Town  Clerk,  and 


io8    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


all  their  wives,"  Bellingham  thus  being  of  the 
company.  Out  in  the  free  America  this  grim 
Puritan  had  a  strangely  strenuous,  peculiarly 
successful  life;  and  the  pictures  of  him  drawn 
by  Hawthorne  in  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  have 
perpetuated  the  fame  of  his  name.  He  was 
succeeded  as  Governor  of  Massachusetts  by 
John  Leverett. 

Then  what  a  familiar  sound  to  transatlantic 
ears  has  the  name  of  Quincy.  It  was  borne 
across  the  sea  by  an  emigrant  from  Fishtoft, 
hereabout,  who  went  with  John  Cotton,  and 
from  this  Old  England  villager,  Edmund  Quincy, 
sprang  in  the  fulness  of  time  Presidents  of  the 
United  States.  Little  less  honour,  in  American 
Nonconformist  hearts,  belongs  to  the  name  of 
Hutchinson,  long  prominent  in  the  life  of  the 
Lincolnshire  Boston.  The  fugitives  to  New 
England  were  the  Alford  branch  of  the  family, 
intimates  of  Cotton  and  Mr.  Coddington,  and 
consisted  of  an  aged  widow,  four  sons,  and  a 
daughter,  wife  of  the  Rev.  John  Wheelwright. 
William,  the  eldest  son,  was  the  husband  of  a 
celebrity,  "the  sainted  Anne  Hutchinson,"  Haw- 
thorne calls  her,  daughter  of  the  Rev.  William 
Marbury.  William  Hutchinson  and  his  brother 
Richard  took  out  adult  families  to  America. 
Edward,  the  third  son,  and  his  nephew,  Edward, 
son  of  William,  accompanied  John  Cotton;  the 
rest  of  the  family  followed  a  year  or  two  later. 
The  tragedy  which  annihilated  most  of  this 
family  is  referred  to  later  on.  The  lad  Edward, 


u-  "lit  K-  -».,«?..<    < 


THE    C.LECTION    OF    ATHERTON    HOUGH    AS    MAYOR 
WHEN    HE    TOOK    THE    CUSTOMARY    OATHS 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


who  sailed  in  the  Griffin,  saved  the  name  from 
extinction  in  Massachusetts,  and  was  ancestor 
of  Governor  Hutch inson,  who  wrote  a  history 
of  the  Colony.  Then  Cotton  took  out  other 
notable  men.  There  was  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Hooker  of  Chelmsford  —  "Son  of  Thunder" 
they  called  him  —  the  first  minister  of  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  and  one  of  the  founders  of  Con- 
necticut. Others  were  Matthew  Allen,  who 
settled  first  at  Cambridge,  and  removed  with 
Hooker  to  Hartford  in  1636;  William  Pierce,  a 
man  of  good  estate;  sturdy  John  Haynes,  a 
friend  of  Hooker's  from  Essex,  a  governor  in 
the  years  to  come  of  both  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut;  and  the  Rev.  Samuel  Stone,  one 
of  the  first  ministers  of  Hartford. 

The  voyage  occupied  nearly  seven  weeks, 
and,  on  September  4  the  Griffin  cast  anchor 
off  the  New  Boston.1  Could  the  full  story  be 
told,  it  would  doubtless  be  found  that  these 
arrivals  in  New  England  included  many  more 
Lincolnshire  men  than  those  who  have  been 
mentioned.  But  of  the  passengers  carried  by 

1  The  event  is  thus  chronicled  by  Winthrop  in  his  Journal:  "Sep.  4. 
The  Griffin,  a  ship  of  three  hundred  tons,  arrived  (having  been  eight 
weeks  in  the  Downs.)  In  this  ship  came  Mr.  Cotton,  Mr.  Hooker  and 
Mr.  Stone,  ministers,  and  Mr.  Peirce,  Mr.  Haynes  (a  gentleman  of 
great  estate),  Mr.  Hoffe  and  many  other  men  of  good  estates.  They 
got  out  of  England  with  much  difficulty,  all  places  being  belaid  to  have 
taken  Mr.  Cotton  and  Mr.  Hooker,  who  had  been  long  sought  for  to 
have  been  brought  into  the  High  Commission;  but  the  master  being 
bound  to  touch  at  the  Wight,  the  pursuivants  attended  there,  and  in 
the  meantime  the  said  ministers  were  taken  in  at  the  Downs.  Mr. 
Hooker  and  Mr.  Stone  went  presently  to  Newtown,  where  they  were 
to  be  entertained,  and  Mr.  Cotton  stayed  at  Boston." 


I 

I 


no    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

the  Griffin  no  complete  list  was  preserved,  and, 
in  the  absence  of  that  evidence,  it  is  impossible 
to  decide  this  question. 

It  is,  however,  possible  to  speak  more  definitely 
with  regard  to  the  conjecture  which  has  been 
put  forward  that  a  number  of  the  colonists  of 
Dorchester  were  also  from  the  neighbourhood 
of  Old  Boston.  They  were  not.  Between  the 
Dorchester  men  and  the  Boston  men  there 
appears  to  have  been  friendly  rivalry  in  the 
matter  of  first  establishing  and  naming  a  settle- 
ment in  the  new  country.  The  Dorchester 
emigrants  went  out  in  a  large  and  well-appointed 
ship  by  themselves.  They  arrived  a  fortnight 
sooner  than  the  rest  of  Winthrop's  fleet,  and 
fixed  upon  Mattapan  (now  South  Boston), 
called  it  Dorchester,  expecting  it  to  become  the 
principal  town.  But  that  honour  was  reserved 
for  Winthrop's  party  and  for  Old  Boston. 

Still,  the  settlers  already  named  were  certainly 
the  more  prominent  of  those  who  went  out. 
One  other  remains  to  be  added  to  the  roll;  it  is 
the  Rev.  Samuel  Whiting,  who  followed  Cotton 
to  America  early  in  1636.  Whiting  was  a  native 
of  Boston  and  a  member  of  a  distinguished  local 
family  which  traced  back  its  connection  with 
the  place  to  the  fourteenth  century  and  its 
participation  in  the  government  of  the  town  to 
1590,  when  John  Whiting  was  a  member  of  the 
Corporation;  his  son  John,  father  of  Samuel,  was 
Mayor  of  Boston  in  1600  and  1608;  John 
Whiting,  born  in  June,  1592,  brother  of  Samuel, 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    in 


was  Mayor  four  times,  in  1626  and  1633 
again  in  two  subsequent  years,  this  being  the 
only  instance  on  record  of  any  person  filling  the 
office  so  often  previous  to  the  Municipal  Act  of 
1835;  another  brother,  James,  also  served  as 
Mayor,  while  Robert  Whiting  was  a  sergeant- 
at-mace  and  Marshal  of  the  Admiralty,  offices 
which  he  resigned  in  1631  and  1632  respectively. 
Alderman  Richard  Westland,  their  brother-in- 
law,  Mayor  in  1632  and  again  eleven  years  later, 
loaned  money  to  the  Massachusetts  Colony 
and  had  six  hundred  acres  of  land  allotted  him 
there  in  discharge  of  the  debt. 

Samuel  Whiting  was  born  in  November,  1597, 
and  after  graduating  at  Emmanuel  College,  Cam- 
bridge (where  he  had  for  his  class-mate  Anthony 
Tuckney,  afterwards  Vicar  of  Boston),  he  took 
orders  in  1620  and  went  into  Norfolk,  where  he 
was  first  chaplain  to  Sir  Nathaniel  Bacon  and 
then  minister  at  King's  Lynn.  Being  a  strong 
Puritan,  he  refused  to  conduct  service  in  the 
manner  prescribed  and  complaints  of  his  non- 
conformity were  made  to  the  Bishop  of  Norwich, 
who  threatened  him  with  the  law.  Instead  of 
being  prosecuted,  however,  he  was  presented 
to  the  living  of  Skirbeck,  Boston,  by  Sir  Edward 
Barkham,  one  of  the  borough  representatives 
in  Parliament  (and  predecessor  in  the  seat  of 
Richard  Bellingham),  who  had  purchased  the 
advowson  from  the  Corporation.  Whiting  was 
instituted  to  the  living  on  February  18,  1625. 
He  was  then  in  his  twenty-eighth  year.  While 


ii2    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


at  Skirbeck  he  contracted  a  notable  marriage. 
It  was  not  the  first  time  he  had  led  a  bride  to 
the  altar;  but  neither  the  name  of  the  bride  nor 
the  situation  of  the  altar  is  known  to  history. 
Anyway,  in  1629  he  was  a  widower;  and  on 
August  6  of  that  year  he  was  wedded  in  Bos- 
ton Church,  presumably  by  John  Cotton  him- 
self, to  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Oliver  St.  John, 
own  cousin  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  The  entry  in 
the  parish  registers  gives  the  names  "Samuell 
Whiting,  gent,  &  Elizabeth  Saint  Johns." 

Here  in  a  little  ceremony  in  Boston  Church, 
a  simple  and  modest  function  without  doubt, 
are  grouped  names  which  make  one  pause  — 
Cromwell,  St.  John,  Cotton,  Whiting.  Oliver 
St.  John,  like  the  Earl  of  Lincoln  and  some  of 
the  Boston  men,  had  himself  stood  out  as  a 
resister  and  been  fined  by  the  Star  Chamber  for 
refusing  to  pay  "benevolences,"  those  forced 
loans  or  gratuities  taken  without  consent  of 
Parliament,  with  or  without  the  condition  of 
repayment;  an  illegal  practice  which  provoked 
memorable  contests  in  the  reigns  of  James  and 
Charles  I.  Whiting,  in  turn,  was  a  resister  in 
matters  ecclesiastical.  The  King's  Lynn  trouble 
recurred,  and  a  few  years  after  his  marriage  to 
Elizabeth  St.  John  he  gave  up  the  living  at 
Skirbeck,  to  which  Jeremiah  Vasyn,  a  Gram- 
mar School  usher,  was  instituted  after  him  on 
December  16,  1635.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Whiting 
shipped  for  America,  landing  at  New  Boston  on 
May  26,  1636,  and,  in  the  November  follow- 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Parish  Register 


SIGNATURE  OF  JOHN  WHITING,  FOUR  TIMES  MAYOR 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

SKIRBECK  CHURCH,  OF  WHICH  SAMUEL  WHITING  WAS  RECTOR, 
1625-1636 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


ing,  the  erstwhile  Rector  of  Skirbeck  was  in- 
stalled as  minister  at  another  Lynn,  the  one 
in  Massachusetts. 

The  advent  of  John  Cotton  and  his  men  was 
hailed  as  a  great  event  in  the  New  Boston  and 
the  whole  Colony.  The  joy  and  satisfaction 
were  universal.  Cotton  was  on  all  hands  re- 
garded as  pre-eminently  "the  man"  for  Massa- 
chusetts. He  was  in  his  forty-ninth  year  when 
he  stepped  ashore  from  the  Griffin,  and  the  stren- 
uous life  then  begun  extended,  strange  to  say, 
over  almost  exactly  the  same  period  that  he  had 
passed  as  Vicar  of  Old  Boston.  His  friends  in 
exile  had  longed  for  his  coming  out,  and  both 
he  and  his  brethren  had  the  best  of  welcomes. 
Nor,  were  these  purposeful  Puritans  without 
their  pleasantry,  for  now  they  said,  they  had 
the  chief  essentials  of  existence:  "Cotton"  for 
clothing,  "Stone"  for  building,  and  "Hooker" 
for  fishing.  Probably  the  three  distinguished 
ministers  who  had  just  landed  in  Boston  had  no 
knowledge  of  this  harmless  playing  upon  their 
names.  They  were  there  for  sterner  things, 
though  the  commonplaces  of  life  concerned  all 
alike  in  those  early  days  of  the  Colony,  with  its 
hardships  and  privations  which  everybody  had 
more  or  less  to  share.  But  this  was  not  the 
worst.  A  time  was  fast  approaching  when  tears 
of  oppression  would  drown  out  all  humour,  the 
mother  wit  would  become  a  dead  faculty,  and 
the  laughter  heard  in  the  land  would  echo  mad- 
ness rather  than  mirth. 


ii4    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


r. 


When  Cotton  came  John  Winthrop  had  been 
chosen  Governor  for  the  fourth  time,  and  Dudley 
deputy-Governor.  There  would  be  much  to  tell 
on  either  side  when  those  two  friends  and  con- 
fidants, Cotton  and  Winthrop,  met  again.  A 
full  exchange  of  news  and  of  views  doubtless 
attended  that  meeting.  Cotton  on  his  part 
would  have  an  interesting  story  enough  to 
pour  into  eager  ears.  Winthrop's  topic  would 
be  the  progress  of  affairs  in  the  Colony.  He 
would  describe  the  decimated  and  almost  des- 
titute condition  in  which  they  found  the  Colony 
when  they  disembarked  at  Salem  with  the 
Charter  of  the  Company:  the  newcomers  had 
to  feed  the  settlers  as  well  as  themselves  out  of 
their  own  none  too  ample  store,  and  it  is  on 
record  that  six  months  after  arrival  Winthrop 
was  in  the  act  of  giving  out  to  a  poor  man  the 
last  handful  of  meal  in  the  communal  barrel 
when  a  ship  with  provisions  providentially 
appeared  at  the  harbour's  mouth.  The  Gov- 
ernor would  point  proudly  to  the  growth  of  settle- 
ments along  the  shores  of  the  Bay  from  Salem 
to  Dorchester,  and  would  speak  more  sadly  of 
their  struggles  and  trials,  and  the  unhappy 
deaths  of  his  own  son,  of  the  Lady  Arbella  and 
Isaac  Johnson,  and  others. 

Problems  of  government  would  also  be  dis- 
cussed by  these  framers  of  the  civil  and  religious 
institutes  of  Massachusetts,  for  now  between 
two  and  three  thousand  people  had  come 
over,  numerous  small  towns  had  been  founded, 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


and  the  plantation  was  rapidly  developing 
into  a  State.  The  Pilgrims  of  Plymouth  were 
still  in  the  peaceful  possession  of  a  part  of 
the  territory  afterwards  included  within  Massa- 
chusetts, enjoying  the  independence  which  con- 
tinued to  be  theirs  for  nearly  sixty  more  years. 
On  Winthrop's  first  appearance  their  popula- 
tion did  not  exceed  three  hundred  souls.  They 
had  helped  John  Endicott  in  his  distress  by 
sending  over  Samuel  Fuller,  deacon  and  physi- 
cian, to  heal  his  sick;  and  now  Governor  Win- 
throp  would  tell  John  Cotton  how  a  year  before, 
in  September,  1632,  he  and  John  Wilson  had 
been  entertained  by  Governor  Bradford  and 
Elder  Brewster  and  Roger  Williams,  Cotton's 
Lincolnshire  friend,  at  Plymouth  when,  on  a 
historic  occasion  in  those  early  Colonial  days, 
they  assembled  there  and  partook  together  of 
the  Holy  Communion,  engaged  in  religious  dis- 
cussion, and,  at  the  suggestion  of  Deacon  Fuller, 
joined  in  a  contribution  for  the  wants  of  the 
poor.  In  after  years,  when  Boston  and  Plym- 
outh became  members  incorporate  of  the  same 
Commonwealth,  this  small  but  significant  inci- 
dent, which  is  carefully  detailed  by  Winthrop 
in  his  Journal,  would  be  looked  back  upon  as  the 
prelude  to  the  closer  relations  which  grew  up 
between  the  sister  settlements. 

It  is  no  adulation  to  say  that  Cotton,  when 
he  came,  was  "a  burning  and  a  shining  light" 
in  the  wilderness.  Nor  is  it  surprising  that  they 
declared  "this  great  light  must  be  set  in  their 


ii6  THE   ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

chief  candlestick."  At  the  instigation  of  its 
Governor  and  Council  and  the  elders  of  the 
Colony  the  Church  accepted  him  as  its  teacher. 
John  Wilson,  after  serving  temporarily  as 
teacher,  was  its  first  pastor.  Thomas  Leverett 
was  also  placed  in  office  in  the  Church.  The 
ceremony  of  installation,  and  of  induction  as 
minister,  took  place  on  October  10,  1633, 
when,  in  the  words  of  Winthrop,  "A  fast  was 
kept  at  Boston,  and  Mr  Leverett,  an  ancient 
sincere  professor  of  Mr  Cotton's  congregation 
in  England,  was  chosen  a  ruling  elder,  and  Mr 
Firmin,  a  godly  man,  an  apothecary  of  Sudbury 
in  England,  was  chosen  deacon,  by  imposition 
of  hands;  and  Mr  Cotton  was  then  chosen 
teacher  of  the  congregation  of  Boston,  and 
ordained  by  imposition  of  the  hands  of  the 
presbytery." 

Cotton  was  first  "chosen  by  all  the  congre- 
gation testifying  their  consent  by  erection  of 
hands."  Then  Mr.  Wilson,  the  pastor,  de- 
manded of  him  "if  he  did  accept  of  that  call." 
He  replied  that  he  could  not  but  accept  it. 
"Then  the  pastor  and  the  two  elders  laid  their 
hands  upon  his  head,  and  the  pastor  prayed, 
and  then,  taking  off"  their  hands,  laid  them  on 
again,  and,  speaking  to  him  by  his  name,  they 
did  thenceforth  design  him  to  the  said  office,  in 
the  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  did  give  him 
the  charge  of  the  congregation,  and  did  thereby 
(as  by  a  sign  from  God)  indue  him  with  the 
gifts  fit  for  his  office;  and  lastly  did  bless  him. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


Then  the  neighbouring  ministers,  which  were 
present,  did  (at  the  pastor's  motion)  give  him 
the  right  hand  of  fellowship,  and  the  pastor 
made  a  stipulation  between  him  and  the  congre- 
gation." Truly  a  touching  service,  impressive 
in  the  simple  and  beautiful  language  in  which 
its  record  has  come  down  to  us.  Both  "pastors 
and  teachers"  were  adopted  for  the  Church  as 
laid  down  by  Paul  in  Ephesians  iv.  n  "for 
the  perfecting  of  the  saints,  for  the  work  of  the 
ministry." 

In  his  humble  little  church  of  clay  and  thatch, 
built  in  1632,  Cotton  at  once  established  the 
same  weekly  Thursday  Lecture  that  he  founded 
in  his  grand  parish  church  at  Old  Boston. 

Heavy  and  harassing  as  the  work  and  life  in 
his  Lincolnshire  parish  had  been,  those  which 
lay  before  him  were  even  more  trying  for  John 
Cotton.  New  controversies  and  perplexities  and 
excitements  were  ahead,  beside  which  those  of 
the  Old  World  paled  into  insignificance.  In  all 
that  followed  Cotton  was  a  conspicuous  figure. 
In  so  far  as  he  failed,  and  his  coadjutors  in  the 
government  of  the  Colony  failed,  the  fault  lies 
at  the  door  of  their  fatal  experiment  of  a  Puritan 
Commonwealth.  Cotton  has  been  called,  and  his 
memory  honoured  as,  the  "  Patriarch  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Theocracy,"  and  has  been  described 
as  "the  clerical  oracle  of  the  Theocracy," 
a  system  which  outraged  the  principles  of  civic 
liberty,  which  opened  wide  the  door  for  intoler- 
ance and  persecution,  was  impracticable  in  its 


ii8    THE  ROMANTIC  STORYOF 

working,  and  violated  the  fundamental  Protes- 
tant doctrine  of  the  right  of  private  judgment. 

Cotton,  as  we  shall  see,  sympathised  with  and 
encouraged  the  theocracy,  but  the  law  by  which 
it  came  to  be  established  was  none  of  his  making: 
it  was  laid  down  by  the  General  Court  two  years 
before  his  coming,  when  it  was  "ordered  that 
henceforth  no  man  shall  be  admitted  to  the  free- 
dom of  this  Commonwealth  but  such  as  are 
members  of  the  churches  within  the  limits  of 
this  jurisdiction."  In  other  words,  there  were 
to  be  no  voters  except  church  members,  who  were 
received  only  on  approval  of  the  clergy.  This 
made  the  ministers  supreme,  and  gave  them 
power  over  matters  of  civic  moment.  Church 
and  State  were  one;  and  the  one  was  to  be  the 
Church. 

But  other  matters  have  to  be  considered  in 
conjunction  with  the  development  of  this  per- 
nicious system  which  the  founders  of  the  Bay 
Colony  set  up.  Welcome  as  the  great  Puritan 
preacher  was,  he  brought  over  with  him  from 
England  some  views  in  regard  to  civil  govern- 
ment which  were  by  no  means  acceptable  in  the 
Colony.  These  views  he  took  occasion  to  im- 
press and  enforce  in  the  election  sermon  which 
he  delivered  before  the  General  Court  in  the 
following  May  (1634),  when  he  maintained 
"that  a  magistrate  ought  not  to  be  turned  into 
the  condition  of  a  private  man  without  just  cause, 
any  more  than  a  magistrate  may  turn  a  private 
man  out  of  his  freehold."  The  General  Court 


PURITAN  FATHERS    119 

replied  to  this  by  at  once  electing  a  new  Governor, 
and  thus  repudiated  the  suggestion  of  a  vested 
right  in  a  political  office. 

But  in  April,  1636,  it  was  ordered  by  the 
General  Court  "that  a  certain  number  of  magis- 
trates should  be  chosen  for  life."  This  council 
for  life  was  undoubtedly  the  work  of  John 
Cotton,  and  was  designed  to  encourage  the 
coming  over  to  New  England  of  some  of  those 
noblemen  of  Old  England  to  whom  life  tenures 
were  dear,  and  who  shrank  from  trusting  their 
distinction  to  popular  favour. 

Cotton  was  corresponding  with  Lord  Say  and 
Sele,  to  whom  he  wrote  in  1636:  "Till  I  get 
some  release  from  my  constant  labours  here 
(which  the  Church  is  desirous  to  procure),  I 
can  get  little  or  no  opportunity  to  read  any- 
thing, or  to  attend  to  anything  but  the  daily 
occurrences  which  press  upon  me  continually, 
much  beyond  my  strength  either  of  body  or 
mind." 

About  this  time  a  paper  was  received  by  the 
Massachusetts  authorities  entitled  "Certain  pro- 
posals made  by  Lord  Say,  Lord  Brooke,  and 
other  persons  of  quality  as  conditions  of  their 
removing  to  New  England."  The  object  was 
to  secure  to  the  proposed  emigrants  that  in  the 
Bay  government  hereditary  privileges  above 
"the  common  sort"  should  be  secured  to  those  of 
gentle  blood.  But,  while  willing  to  accord 
"hereditary  honours,"  the  rulers  of  the  Colony 
could  not  concede  "hereditary  authority."  Nor 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


could  they  admit  that  the  freeholders  or  voters 
should  be  those  who  owned  a  certain  personal 
estate,  for  the  condition  of  the  franchise  must 
be  membership  of  some  church.  The  only 
magistrates  they  could  set  in  office  must  be 
"men  fearing  God"  (Exodus  xviii.  21),  and  these 
must  be  "chosen  out  of  their  brethren"  (Deut. 
xvii.  15)  "by  saints"  (I.  Cor.  vi.  i).  Here  was 
a  frank  and  full  avowal  that  the  Puritan  State 
was  founded  on  and  identical  with  the  Puritan 
Church.  The  Puritan  theocracy  must  be  ad- 
ministered by  God's  people  in  Church  covenant. 
Anyhow,  the  council  for  life  was  established, 
and  not  only  was  it  entirely  in  keeping  with 
Cotton's  election  sermon  of  1634,  but  it  was 
expressly  provided  for  in  the  Code  of  Laws 
drafted  on  the  model  of  "Moses  his  Judicials" 
which  he  presented  to  the  General  Court  in 
October,  1636.  This  Code,  which  was  under- 
stood to  be  the  work  of  Cotton  and  Mr.  Belling- 
ham,1  was  not  adopted,  but  was  printed  in 
London  in  1641.  Norton,  in  his  Memoir  of 
Mr.  Cotton,  says  it  was  in  this  abstract  that 

1  In  this  connection  may  be  noted  the  sale  by  auction  in  London  in 
the  autumn  of  1905  of  a  MS.  of  some  interest.  It  is  a  transcript,  written 
on  twenty  leaves  of  paper,  of  the  Charter  of  Boston,  Lincolnshire, 
granted  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII,  showing  that  it  was  employed  by 
the  early  settlers  when  founding  the  now  greater  city  of  Boston,  Massa- 
chusetts. The  MS.,  written  in  a  hand  of  the  time  of  Charles  I,  con- 
tains copy  and  analyses  of  grants  made  by  Henry  VIII  to  the  town  of 
Boston.  From  its  being  found  at  Hingham,  Massachusetts  and  by 
reason  of  its  being  endorsed  "Massachusetts,  one  of  the  American 
States,  the  capital,"  it  is  believed  that  the  collation  was  made  for 
use  as  a  guide  to  the  founders  of  New  Boston  in  framing  their 
constitution. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    121 


Cotton  "advised  the  people  to  persist  in  their 
purpose  of  establishing  a  Theocracy,  i.e.,  God's 
government  for  God's  people."  The  first  Code 
adopted  was  the  "Body  of  Liberties"  drawn 
up  in  1638  by  Nathaniel  Ward,  pastor  of  the 
Ipswich  Church,  formerly  a  student  and  practiser 
of  the  law  in  England,  whose  "Simple  Cobbler 
of  Agawam"  has  made  his  name  familiar.  This 
Code  of  Laws,  one  hundred  in  number,  was  au- 
thorised three  years  later,  in  1641,  when  Richard 
Bellingham  succeeded  to  the  governorship. 

Meanwhile  all  was  not  harmony  within  the 
"inner  circle"  at  Boston.  In  the  governing 
body  itself  there  were  open  disagreements  and 
disputes  between  Winthrop  and  Dudley.  For 
these  quarrels  the  temper  of  the  deputy  —  he 
was  "somewhat  querulous  and  exacting"  — 
must  be  held  responsible.  Certainly  Winthrop, 
in  the  course  of  misunderstandings  which  must 
have  given  him  infinite  pain,  exhibited  a 
brotherly  spirit,  for  we  have  the  incident  of  his 
returning  an  insulting  letter  to  Dudley  and  tell- 
ing him  "I  am  not  willing  to  keep  such  an 
occasion  for  provocation  by  me."  The  times 
were  no  doubt  trying  for  them  all.  Bigger 
storm-clouds  were  gathering.  In  1634  Dudley 
succeeded  to  the  governorship,  but  in  the  May 
following  was  dropped  from  the  chief  magis- 
tracy and  John  Haynes  was  chosen  Governor  in 
his  stead. 

It  was  now  that  Hugh  Peters,  the  ex-pastor, 
and  Harry  Vane  appeared  on  the  scene  and 


122   THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

threw  themselves  into  the  affairs  of  the  Colony. 
Vane,  a  young  man  of  four  and  twenty,  was  son 
of  Sir  Henry  Vane,  Comptroller  of  the  King's 
Household  in  England,  and  had  been  employed 
by  his  father  while  a  foreign  ambassador.  Vane 
and  Peters  considerably  accelerated  the  pace 
of  New  England  politics.  They  straightway 
called  a  meeting  at  Boston  of  the  leading  magis- 
trates and  ministers  of  the  Colony  with  a  view 
to  "healing  some  distractions'*  in  the  Common- 
wealth and  effecting  "a  more  firm  and  friendly 
uniting  of  minds."  At  this  meeting  Vane  and 
Peters,  with  Governor  Haynes  and  the  ministers 
Cotton,  Wilson,  and  Hooker,  declared  themselves 
in  favour  of  a  more  rigorous  administration  of 
government  than  had  hitherto  been  pursued. 
Winthrop  was  charged  with  having  displayed 
"overmuch  lenity."  The  ministers  delivered  a 
formal  opinion  "that  strict  discipline  both  in 
criminal  offences  and  in  martial  affairs  was  more 
needful  in  plantations  than  in  settled  States, 
as  tending  to  the  honour  and  safety  of  the 
Gospel."  In  accordance  with  the  resolution  of 
April,  1636,  Winthrop  and  Dudley  were  at  the 
election  in  May  chosen  counsellors  for  life,  and 
Vane  was  at  the  same  time  made  Governor  of 
Massachusetts.  Winthrop  accepted  the  deputy- 
governorship,  and  in  his  Journal  says  that 
because  Vane  "was  son  and  heir  to  a  Privy 
Councillor  in  England  the  ships  congratulated 
his  election  with  a  volley  of  great  shot."  This 
was  auspicious.  Vane's  administration,  however, 


Reproduced  from  an  old  Engraving,  through  the  Courtesy  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    123 

was  disturbed  by  violent  religious  and  civil  con- 
tentions involving  the  story  of  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son  and  the  Antinomian  controversy,  and  only 
lasted  a  year.  It  was  a  very  lively  time  for 
everybody.  The  place  was  in  a  tumult.  Pastor 
Wilson  threw  himself  into  the  election  against 
Vane,  who  had  dared  to  take  the  side  of  Mrs. 
Hutchinson,  and  having,  with  more  agility  than 
dignity,  "got  up  on  the  bough  of  a  tree," 
harangued  the  crowd  in  a  speech  which  is  said 
to  have  turned  the  election.  Governor  Win- 
throp  thus  entered  on  his  fifth  term  of  the  chief 
magistracy  in  May,  1637,  and  soon  after  his 
re-election  the  General  Court  passed  the  order 
"that  none  should  be  received  to  inhabite 
within  this  jurisdiction  but  such  as  should  be 
allowed  by  some  of  the  magistrates,"  which 
gave  rise  to  the  final  wordy  bout  between  him- 
self and  Vane.  Both  Harry  Vane  and  Roger 
Williams,  and  later  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  found  a 
sympathiser  in  John  Cotton.  Vane  was  indeed 
one  of  his  "early  good  friends,"  and  when  he 
left  the  Colony  he  gave  him  the  house  in  which 
Cotton  lived  and  died  at  Boston.1 

1  This  house,  the  home  of  young  "Harry"  Vane,  as  he  is  usually  called 
—  he  was  afterwards  Sir  Henry  Vane  —  and  next  of  John  Cotton,  stood 
upon  the  slope  of  Beacon  Hill,  on  the  west  side  of  the  lower  entrance  to 
what  is  now  Pemberton  Square,  about  on  the  rear  portion  of  the  present 
site  of  the  Suffolk  Savings  Bank  building.  It  consequently  immedi- 
ately overlooked  what  is  now  ScoIIay  Square,  and  commanded  Court 
Street  and  State  Street.  Later  the  dwelling  was  occupied  by  Hull  the 
Mint  Master,  and  Samuel  Sewall,  the  first  Chief  Justice  of  the  Colony. 
A  little  to  the  south  of  it  resided  Governor  Bellingham,  in  a  house  which 
was  still  standing  in  1828.  Wilson,  the  pastor,  lived  where  the  Mer- 
chants' Bank  stands,  and  Wilson's  Lane  until  recent  years  transmitted 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


Disgusted  by  his  experience,  Vane  returned  to 
England  in  August  of  the  same  year,1  Governor 
Winthrop  giving  orders  for  his  "honorable  dis- 
mission" with  "divers  vollies  of  shot."  He  kept 
up  a  friendly  correspondence  with  Winthrop 
and  Cotton  till  1645,  and  showed  himself  a  true 
friend  to  New  England.  His  fate  was  exceed- 
ingly melancholy.  Beaten  by  the  bigotry  of 
one  Commonwealth,  he  died  by  the  headsman's 
axe  for  his  faithful  service  to  another. 

So  far  from  diminishing  with  the  departure  of 
the  hapless  Vane,  contentions  in  the  Colony 
waxed  fiercer  than  ever,  and  the  General  Court 
adopted  harsher  repressive  measures.  The  first 
serious  trouble  to  engage  the  Court  was  that 
of  Roger  Williams,  who  arrived  with  his  wife 
at  Boston  in  1631,  while  Wilson  was  absent  in 

the  name  of  the  minister.  The  site  of  the  present  old  State  House  was 
originally  the  open  Market-place  of  the  town,  and  the  first  meeting- 
house stood  on  the  south  side  of  the  Market-place,  on  the  spot  now 
covered  by  Brayer's  Building. 

1  After  his  return  home  Sir  Henry  Vane  became  active  in  the  service 
of  the  Parliament.  At  the  Westminster  Assembly  he  pressed  for  full 
religious  liberty,  and  he  supported  the  efforts  of  Cromwell  in  establish- 
ing the  Self-denying  Ordinance  and  the  New  Model.  He  filled  the 
office  of  Treasurer  of  the  Navy,  and  it  was  through  his  exertions  that 
Blake  was  fitted  out  with  the  fleet  with  which  Van  Tromp  was  defeated. 
After  the  Civil  War  he  retired  to  Belleau  in  Lincolnshire,  which  was 
sequestered  to  him;  and  there  on  Sundays  he  was  long  to  be  found 
assembling  and  preaching  to  his  country  neighbours.  His  shameful 
death  at  the  Restoration  is  a  blot  on  the  national  history.  The  return 
of  royalty  also  brought  to  the  scaffold  his  old  friend  the.  famous  Hugh 
Peters,  who  after  seven  years'  active  labours  as  a  New  England  minis- 
ter, became  a  promoter  of  the  English  Commonwealth.  It  was  Mr. 
Peters  who,  in  1636,  from  Salem  "rebuked  the  governour,"  and  "plainly 
insinuated  that  if  governours  would  concern  themselves  only  with  the 
things  of  Cffsar,  the  things  of  God  would  be  more  quiet  and  prosperous." 


HARRY  VANE 
Afterwards  Sir  Henry  Vane 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    125 

England,  and  was  invited  to  become  its  teacher, 
but  refused,  because,  forsooth,  the  members  of 
the  Church  would  not  "make  humble  confes- 
sion of  sin  in  having  communed  with  the  Church 
of  England."  Williams  was  not  then  known  as 
in  after  years  for  his  sweetness  of  spirit,  liber- 
ality and  magnanimity,  but  seems  rather  to 
have  impressed  those  who  met  him  with  holding 
"singular  opinions,"  and  being  "very  unsettled 
in  judgmente."  He  went  to  Salem,  next  for  a 
short  time  to  Plymouth,  and  returned  to  Salem 
in  1634.  Elder  Brewster,  fearing  that  he  would 
"run  a  course  of  rigid  Separation  and  Anabap- 
tistry,"  was  glad  to  facilitate  his  removal  from 
Plymouth.  Then  began  his  conflict  with  the 
Massachusetts  authorities.  Seven  days  after 
the  meeting  called  at  Boston  by  Vane  and  Peters, 
at  which  a  more  rigorous  administration  was 
decided  upon,  Governor  Haynes  and  the  Assist- 
ants were  informed  that  Roger  Williams,  who 
in  the  previous  October  had  been  sentenced  by 
the  General  Court  to  depart  out  of  their  juris- 
diction within  six  weeks,  and  to  whom  liberty 
had  been  granted  "to  stay  till  spring,"  was 
using  this  liberty  for  preaching  and  propagating 
the  doctrines  for  which  he  had  been  censured. 
So  they  despatched  Captain  Underhill  to  appre- 
hend him,  with  a  view  to  his  being  shipped  off 
at  once  to  England.  But  Williams  escaped  to 
Narragansett  Bay,  and  became  the  founder  of 
Rhode  Island. 

This  same  Underhill  was  a  member  of  the 


I 


126     THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

Boston  Church,  and  very  serviceable  in  his 
military  capacity;  but  he  was  a  sad  reprobate, 
and  when,  under  the  Antinomian  cloak,  he  was 
detected  of  gross  immorality  he  had  the  assurance 
to  tell  the  pure-hearted  Governor  Winthrop 
"that  the  spirit  had  sent  in  to  him  the  witness 
of  Free  Grace  while  he  was  in  the  moderate 
enjoyment  of  the  creature  called  tobacco"  — 
that  is,  while  he  was  smoking  his  pipe! 

Anne  Hutchinson,  the  most  prominent  among 
the  Antinomians  at  Boston  —  that  fearless 
matron  from  the  Old  Boston,  where  she  was  a 
devout  attendant  upon  Cotton's  preaching  — 
was  an  excellent  woman,  to  whose  personal 
conduct  attaches  no  stain.  Described  by  Win- 
throp as  possessing  "a  ready  wit  and  a  bold 
spirit,"  she  proved  a  sharp  thorn  in  the  side 
of  the  New  England  rulers.  Trusted  and  es- 
teemed by  many  of  the  principal  women  of  the 
New  Boston,  Mrs.  Hutchinson  drew  groups  of 
them  around  her  to  discuss  the  sermons  de- 
livered by  the  associate  ministers,  and  she  so 
worked  upon  them  that  "the  whole  community," 
we  are  told,  "was  in  a  fever  of  mutual  distrust, 
jealousy  and  dread  of  impending  catastrophe." 
The  associate  elders,  Cotton  and  Wilson,  and 
the  governors  Vane  and  Winthrop,  each  took 
different  sides  in  the  contest.  Anne  for  a  while 
held  her  own  in  the  controversy,  which  entailed 
many  a  home  thrust  for  the  "ushers  of  perse- 
cution," as  she  called  her  opponents.  But  they 
bore  her  down  at  last,  and  the  way  they  did 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    127 

it  is  one  of  the  most  curious  and  enlightening 
passages  of  the  time.  After  browbeating  their 
victim  —  this  "breeder  of  heresies"  —  on  two 
successive  Thursday  Lecture  days,  and  entan- 
gling themselves  in  the  process  in  the  labyrinths 
of  divinity  (those  "doctrinal  thickets,"  and 
"metaphysical  mayes,"  which  appal  the  pres- 
ent-day student  of  the  times),  from  ten  in  the 
morning  into  the  evening  hours,  they  decreed 
banishment  and  said  if  she  dared  to  return,  the 
punishment  would  perhaps  be  death.  Sentence 
of  excommunication  was  pronounced  by  her  en- 
emy, Wilson,  who  cast  her  out,  and  "in  the  name 
of  Christ"  delivered  her  up  to  Satan,  and  ac- 
counted her  to  be  from  that  time  forth  a  heathen, 
a  publican,  and  a  leper.  The  ultimate  fate  of 
this  unfortunate  woman  in  another  colony  — 
falling  with  all  her  family  save  one  child  in  the 
Indian  massacre  —  was  most  sad  and  deplorable. 
Probably  the  worst  features  of  the  Puritan  dis- 
cipline, with  its  attendant  follies  and  errors, 
were  the  outrages  visited  by  it  on  individuals 
and  classes  who,  however  offensive  in  their 
heresies,  were  pure  and  upright  in  their  lives. 
In  this  Antinomian  contest,  as  presented  by 
Mrs.  Hutchinson  and  her  friends  and  foes,  not 
strangers  and  intruders,  but  members  of  the 
community,  most  of  them  in  full  church  cove- 
nant, were  made  to  suffer  the  penalties  of  the 
Puritan  rule. 

The  incorporation  of  religion  with  the  State 
bred  disastrous  mistakes.     It  was  a  fundamental 


128    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


principle  that  all  laws  should  be  in  accordance 
with  the  Scriptures  as  interpreted  by  the  min- 
isters and  elders  of  the  congregations;  and  any 
omissions  in  the  settled  Code  were  to  be  supplied 
from  the  same  source,  under  the  same  direc- 
tion. "Whatever  John  Cotton  delivered  in  the 
pulpit,"  says  a  contemporary  historian,  "was 
soon  put  into  an  order  of  the  Court,  or  set  up  as 
a  practice  in  the  church."  In  discourses  at  the 
Thursday  Lecture  he  was  ever  ready,  not  only 
to  give  decided  counsels  on  secular  matters 
when  his  advice  was  sought,  but,  when  some 
critical  point  was  in  contest  before  the  Court, 
he  would  adjudicate  upon  the  subject,  ostensibly 
through  his  "exposition  of  the  Word  of  God." 

None  other  than  the  Puritan  form  of  worship 
was  on  any  pretence  to  be  tolerated ;  and  absence 
from  the  church  services  without  good  and  suffi- 
cient excuse,  such  as  dangerous  illness,  was 
punishable  more  or  less  severely.  The  penalties 
incurred  by  infringement  of  any  portion  of  these 
laws  were,  in  the  first  years  of  the  Colony,  fine, 
whipping,  imprisonment,  banishment;  but  as 
the  spirit  of  opposition  to  which  this  severity 
naturally  gave  rise  grew  stronger,  more  stringent 
expedients  were  resorted  to,  until  at  last  sentence 
of  torture  and  death  was  pronounced,  and  even 
executed,  upon  stubborn  heretics  to  the  Puritan 
establishment. 

Troubles  galore  were  bred  by  the  oppressive 
system  adopted.  History  records  how  these 
Puritans,  who  had  tasted  the  bitters  of  per- 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    129 

secution,  held  with  a  ready  hand  the  cup  to 
the  lips  of  those  who  opposed  them.  The 
very  weapon  that  was  used  on  themselves  they 
now  unsparingly  turned  upon  others.  The  ex- 
cuse was  sardonic.  Having  themselves  escaped 
a  tyranny  which  they  found  hateful,  they  es- 
tablished here  a  tyranny  which  they  believed  to 
be  essential  and  even  beneficial.  The  perse- 
cuted came  to  be  the  persecutors,  and  those  who 
had  been  driven  out  of  England  for  their  non- 
conformity now  banished  people  from  New  Eng- 
land because  of  their  opinions.  The  tyranny 
exercised  was  of  a  thoroughgoing  kind.  So  strict 
were  they  in  avoiding  whatever  savoured  of 
ritual,  that  the  very  rites  of  marriage  and  burial 
were  relegated  to  civil  hands;  the  drum-beat, 
and  not  the  bell,  was  the  summons  to  worship; 
no  instrument,  but  only  the  human  voice,  was 
allowed  in  the  services;  and  the  public  read- 
ing of  the  Scriptures  without  exposition  was 
forbidden. 

Orders  issued  by  the  General  Court  serve  to 
illustrate  the  spirit  of  the  legislation  as  well  as 
the  habits  of  the  people  at  this  period.  The 
Court  for  example,  "taking  into  consideration 
the  great  superfluous  and  unnecessary  expenses 
occasioned  by  reason  of  some  new  and  immodest 
fashions,"  as  also  "the  ordinary  wearing  of 
silver,  gold  and  silk  laces,  girdles,  hatbands" 
and  what  not,  ordered  "that  no  person,  either 
man  or  woman,  shall  hereafter  make  or  buy 
any  apparel  either  woollen,  silk  or  linen,  with 


130   THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

any  lace  on  it,  silver,  gold,  silk  or  thread," 
under  the  penalty  of  forfeiture  of  such  clothes. 
Even  "the  creature  called  tobacco"  did  not 
escape.  "It  is  ordered  that  no  person  shall 
take  tobacco  publicly  under  the  penalty  of  two 
shillings  and  six  pence,  nor  privately  in  his  own 
house  or  in  the  house  of  another  before  strangers, 
and  that  two  or  more  shall  not  take  it  together 
anywhere,  under  the  aforesaid  penalty  for  every 
offence."  There  is  nothing  very  remarkable  in 
this;  it  is  curious,  though  in  keeping  with  the 
temper  of  the  times.  But  the  punishments 
inflicted  upon  offenders  against  the  Puritan 
tyranny  were  unreasonably  severe  even  in  that 
austere  age. 

Samuel  Gorton,  a  "clothier  from  London," 
appeared  at  Boston  in  1636  and  shortly  after- 
wards went  to  Plymouth,  whence  he  was  soon 
expelled  for  his  strange  heresies.  Next  he  was 
whipped  in  Rhode  Island  for  calling  the  magis- 
trates "just-asses,"  and  found  refuge  with  Roger 
Williams  in  Providence.  In  a  dispute  with  the 
Boston  authorities  about  the  lands  on  which  he 
and  others  were  settled  he  was  seized,  and  with 
ten  of  his  followers  was  brought  to  Boston,  where 
for  his  "damnable  heresies"  he  was  put  in  irons, 
confined  to  labour  and  whipped,  and  then  ban- 
ished on  pain  of  death  if  he  appeared  there 
again.  Gorton  was  described  by  the  magistrates 
as  "the  very  dregs  of  Familism";  he  was  in 
fact  a  disciple  of  the  fanatic  David  George  of 
Delft,  founder  of  the  "Family  of  Love,"  who 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    131 

called  himself  the  "Messiah."  Other  typical 
cases  are  those  of  Henry  Lynne  and  Philip  Rat- 
cliff  e,  who  for  "slandering"  the  rulers  and  elders 
were  mercilessly  ill  used.  Mr.  Britton  for  criti- 
cising the  churches  was  openly  whipped.  Doro- 
thy Talbye,  driven  to  distraction  by  incessant 
religious  teachings,  was  hanged  for  murdering 
her  little  daughter,  in  the  hope,  as  she  said,  that 
she  might  free  her  from  future  misery.  She  was 
insane,  but  they  mistook  her  madness  for  crim- 
inality. At  Salem  the  wife  of  one  Oliver,  for 
reproaching  the  elders,  was  whipped  and  had  a 
cleft  stick  put  on  her  tongue  for  half-an-hour. 
That  they  were  no  respecters  of  persons,  these 
reformers,  is  shown  by  their  handling  of  Robert 
Keayne,  brother-in-law  of  Pastor  Wilson  and 
founder  of  the  Artillery  Company,  who  had  been 
chosen  four  times  from  Boston  to  the  General 
Court.  Arraigned  for  charging  too  much  for 
his  goods  of  commerce,  he  was  admonished  by 
the  Church  for  covetousness  and  sentenced  by 
the  Court  to  pay  a  fine  of  one  hundred  pounds. 
About  this  time  Edward  Palmer,  accused  of 
extortion  in  taking  too  much  for  the  plank  and 
woodwork  of  Boston  stocks,  was  fined  and  de- 
graded by  being  made  to  sit  for  an  hour  in  his 
own  machine  as  an  object  lesson  to  wrong-doers! 
But  this  punishment,  if  mortifying  to  the  spirit, 
was  not  so  hard  to  bear  as  that  of  Captain 
Kemble,  who  had  to  sit  in  the  stocks  two  hours  for 
kissing  his  wife  publicly  on  the  Sabbath  Day  when 
he  first  saw  her  after  an  absence  of  three  years. 


THE   BOSTONS   AND  "THE   SCARLET 


VIII 

THE   BOSTONS   AND    "THE   SCARLET 
LETTER" 

Rise,  then,  0  buried  city  that  bast  been; 
Rise  up,  rebuilded  in  the  painted  scene, 
And  let  our  curious  eyes  behold  once  more 
The  pointed  gable  and  the  pent-bouse  door, 
The  Meeting-bouse  with  leaden-latticed  panes, 
The  narrow  thoroughfares,  the  crooked  lanes! 

Prologue  to  The  New  England  Tragedies 

—  LONGFELLOW 

f  II  ^HE  history  we  have  been  considering 
has  been  painted  for  us  in  startling  hues 

11  by  the  author  of  "The  Scarlet  Letter," 
that  wonderful  romance  which  captivated  and 
still  holds  the  world.  A  pitiless  portrayal  of 
New  England  Puritanism,  it  is  remarkable  for 
the  phantasy  rather  than  the  fidelity  of  its 
pages;  but  whatever  its  imaginative  flights, 
it  breathes  the  spirit  and  is  clothed  with  the 
atmosphere  of  the  times. 

What  a  scene  and  what  thoughts  are  those 
which  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  conjures  up  in 
his  picture  of  the  New  Boston!  Emerging 
from  the  "iron-clamped  oaken  door"  of  the 
town  gaol  in  Prison  Lane  —  corresponding, 
shall  we  say,  with  the  narrow  little  Guild- 
hall Street  of  Old  Boston?  —  comes  comely 
Hester  Prynne,  "an  infant  on  her  arm,  and 


I 


yv  i 

1 

m 


136    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

the  letter  A,  in  scarlet,  fantastically  em- 
broidered with  gold  thread,  upon  her  bosom." 
She  is  preceded  by  the  town  beadle,  represent- 
ing in  his  grim  aspect  all  the  austerity  of  the 
Puritanic  code  of  law.  Hester  walks  to  the 
scaffold  at  the  extremity  of  the  Market-place, 
there  to  exhibit  publicly  her  shame  to  the 
sombre  gazing  crowd  of  men  in  sad-coloured 
garments  and  gray,  steeple-crowned  hats,  inter- 
mixed with  women,  and  mounts  the  wooden 
steps  leading  to  the  platform  of  the  pillory, 
which  "stood  nearly  beneath  the  eaves  of  Bos- 
ton's earliest  church";  just  as  the  punishment 
place  of  the  Old  Boston  was  a  corner  of  the 
Market-square  almost  in  the  shadow  of  the 
mother  church,  where  they  had  their  gaol  and 
their  "Little- Ease,"  their  pillory,  a  pillory-pit 
which  was  walled  around  the  year  John  Cotton 
came,  and  afterwards  a  ducking-stool  in  that 
same  pit  and  a  "hurry  cart,"  tied  to  the  tail 
of  which  poor  wretches  were  hurried  round  all 
too  slowly  and  whipped  at  the  door  of  every 
Alderman. 

A  strange  contrast  this  of  the  two  Bostons. 
But  there  is  another  which  appeals  to  us  more. 
For  was  it  not  —  as  a  New  England  divine  * 
reminded  men  two  hundred  years  later  when 
the  second  centenary  of  the  founding  of  Cotton's 
Thursday  Lectures  was  celebrated  —  in  this 

1  Dr.  Nathaniel  L.  Frothingham,  a  successor  of  John  Cotton  in  the 
ministry  of  the  First  Church  in  Boston,  of  which  he  was  pastor  1815-50. 
His  wife  was  a  descendant  of  Cotton. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


"poor  meeting-house"  of  New  Boston,  "having 
nothing  better  than  mud  for  its  walls  and  straw 
for  its  roof,"  that  the  same  eloquent  voice  was 
uplifted  that  had  been  "heard  many  and  many 
a  time  rolling  among  the  stately  gothic  arches 
of  St.  Botolph"  and  had  ministered  "under  one 
of  the  loftiest  and  most  magnificent  towers  in 
Europe,  lifting  itself  up  as  the  pride  of  the  sur- 
rounding country  and  a  landmark  to  them  that 
are  afar  off  at  sea"? 

In  a  balcony  of  the  meeting-house,  looking 
down  upon  the  platform  and  hapless  Hester 
Prynne  and  her  babe,  sat  with  counsellors  and 
ministers  a  notable  figure  from  the  Old  Boston, 
"Governor  Bellingham  himself,  with  four  ser- 
geants about  his  chair,  bearing  halberds,  as  a 
guard  of  honour.  He  wore  a  dark  feather  in 
his  hat,  a  border  of  embroidery  on  his  cloak, 
and  a  black  velvet  tunic  beneath;  a  gentleman 
advanced  in  years,  with  a  hard  expression 
written  in  his  wrinkles."  Now  follow  short 
harangues  from  the  Reverend  John  Wilson  (look- 
ing like  "the  darkly  engraved  portraits"  seen 
"prefixed  to  old  volumes  of  sermons")  and  from 
Ruler  Bellingham  ("speaking  in  an  authoritative 
voice")  bidding  "Good  Master  Dimmesdale," 
that  paragon  of  excellence  in  the  assembled 
eyes  (a  young  clergyman  who  had  come 
"from  one  of  the  great  English  universities, 
bringing  all  the  learning  of  the  age  into  our  wild 
forest-land"),  exhort  the  wearer  of  the  scarlet 
token  to  repentance  and  confession.  We  know 


138   THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

how  he  did  it,  and  what  it  must  have  cost  him; 
also  how  brave  Hester  Prynne,  with  a  mis- 
placed fidelity,  screens  her  betrayer  and  will  not 
speak  out  his  name. 

Then  the  long  and  thunderous  discourse  of 
Master  Wilson  "on  sin  in  all  its  branches," 
but  with  repeated  reference  to  the  ignominious 
letter,  which  very  naturally  assumed  new  terrors 
to  the  multitude  and  "seemed  to  derive  its 
scarlet  hue  from  the  flames  of  the  infernal  pit." 
So  much  so  that,  when  Hester  came  down  from 
the  pedestal  of  shame  and  re-entered  the  prison, 
it  was  fancied  in  the  heated  imagination  of  the 
throng  that  the  symbol  "threw  a  lurid  gleam 
along  the  dark  passage-way  of  the  interior." 

We  have  another  picture  of  Bellingham  and 
his  home  in  the  visit  paid  by  Hester  to  the 
Governor's  Hall,  with  its  row  of  portraits  on 
the  wall  of  the  forefathers  of  the  Bellingham 
lineage.  There  is  a  reproachful  bitterness  about 
this  description  that  is  not  justified  to  anything 
like  the  same  extent  as  the  vein  of  hostility 
running  through  the  story  to  the  misguided 
severity  which  is  responsible  for  the  wearing 
of  the  scarlet  letter.  It  must  therefore  be  re- 
garded in  the  light  of  a  caricature.  Thus  of 
Governor  Bellingham  it  is  said  that  "The  wide 
circumference  of  an  elaborate  ruff,  beneath  his 
gray  beard,  in  the  antiquated  fashion  of  King 
James'  reign,  caused  his  head  to  look  not  a 
little  like  that  of  John  the  Baptist  in  a  charger"; 
and  "The  impression  made  by  his  aspect,  so 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


rigid  and  severe,  and  frost-bitten  with  more 
than  autumnal  age,  was  hardly  in  keeping 
with  the  appliances  of  worldly  enjoyment  where- 
with he  had  evidently  done  his  utmost  to 
surround  himself."  Even  Pastor  Wilson  is  rep- 
resented as  a  very  comfortable  personage,  with 
a  marked  fondness  for  the  good  things  of  this 
world. 

We  have  later  a  weird  scene  in  which  the 
restless,  remorseful  Dimmesdale  wanders  forth 
into  the  silent  night  and  in  a  moral  frenzy 
mounts  the  guilty  platform,  "black  and  weather- 
stained  with  the  storm  or  sunshine  of  seven  long 
years,"  where  Hester  Prynne  had  stood.  In  his 
mental  agony  he  shrieks  aloud.  But  he  only 
arouses  Governor  Bellingham,  and  the  hoary 
magistrate  appears  at  a  chamber  window  with 
a  lamp  in  his  hand,  a  nightcap  on  his  head,  and 
a  long  white  gown  enveloping  his  figure,  look- 
ing "like  a  ghost  evoked  unseasonably  from  the 
grave";  and  old  Mistress  Hibbins,  the  Gov- 
ernor's sister,  also  with  a  lamp  revealing  her 
"sour  and  discontented  face."  But  the  alarm 
passes  off.  The  Reverend  Mr.  Wilson,  fresh 
from  his  vigil  by  the  deathbed  of  Governor 
Winthrop,1  goes  by  unheeding.  Not  so  Hester 
Prynne,  who,  returning  from  Winthrop's  house, 
where  she  has  "taken  his  measure  for  a  robe," 
is  called  by  the  distraught  Dimmesdale,  and 

1  Winthrop  died  in  1649,  the  same  year  in  which  John  Cotton  lost 
Roland,  his  youngest  son,  and  Sarah,  his  eldest  daughter,  within  a  few 
days  of  each  other,  victims  of  the  small-pox. 


140   THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

with  her  infant  ascends  again  that  scaffold  and 
stands  beside  him. 

The  scene  heightens  in  intensity,  for  now  a 
meteor  sweeps  across  the  sky,  illuming  it.  "And 
there  stood  the  minister,  with  his  hand  over  his 
heart;  and  Hester  Prynne,  with  the  embroidered 
letter  glimmering  on  her  bosom;  and  little 
Pearl,  herself  a  symbol,  and  the  connecting  link 
between  these  two."  The  meteor  in  its  flight 
appears  to  take  the  shape  of  an  immense  letter 
A  "marked  out  in  lines  of  dull  red  light";  and 
at  this  awful  moment,  admonitory  as  it  seems 
of  the  judgment  day,  is  disclosed  near  the  plat- 
form the  avenging  figure  of  fiendish  old  Roger 
Chillingworth.  He  also  is  from  poor  Winthrop's 
bedside.  But  why  feebly  repaint  the  thrilling 
spectacle  here?  It  is  there  in  Hawthorne's 
masterpiece.  A  situation  more  strongly  charged 
with  vividness,  could  not  well  be;  and,  if  the 
portent  in  the  sky  was  read  by  all  New  Boston 
who  saw  it  as  the  spirit  of  good  Governor 
Winthrop  departing  to  its  rest,  why,  it  pro- 
claims the  work  of  a  great  artist,  and  nothing 
more.1 

1  When  John  Cotton  died,  three  years  later,  the  superstition  of  the 
day  discerned  alarming  portents  in  the  heavens  while  his  body  lay 
ready  for  burial.  Norton,  his  successor,  in  "  The  New  England  Trage- 
dies" voices  the  beliefs  of  the  time  when  he  says  of  Cotton  and  his  own 
coming  to  Boston  : 

And,  as  he  lay 

On  his  death-bed,  he  saw  me  in  a  vision 
Ride  on  a  snow-white  horse  into  this  town. 


When  Norton  died  of  apoplexy  the  friends  of  the  persecuted  Quakers, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  day,  pronounced  it  "a  judgment  of  the  Lord." 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    141 

But  there  is  a  scene  more  powerfully  dra- 
matic still  when  the  tormented  and  failing 
Dimmesdale,  pulled  together  by  a  last  supreme 
effort,  embraces  the  opportunity  of  his  life,  and 
before  fleeing  the  town  with  Hester  (what  a 
climax!)  preaches  the  Election  Sermon.  We 
have  here  described  the  press  of  the  holiday 
throng,  and  the  procession  of  the  magistrates 
and  citizens  to  the  meeting-house  of  New  Boston, 
headed  by  drum  and  clarion;  the  company 
of  soldiers  following  the  swelling  music  with 
weapons  and  armour;  the  men  of  civil  eminence 
behind  the  military  escort  —  Bradstreet,  Endi- 
cott,  Dudley,  Bellingham,  and  others  not  named, 
who  could  easily  be  suggested  —  the  ministers, 
and  the  rest. 

It  is  all  finely  drawn,  and  surely  it  is  all  an 
importation  from  the  Old  Boston,  where  the 
same  kind  of  procession  had  so  often  moved 
through  the  Market-place  to  the  mother  church, 
with  the  Mayor  and  Corporation  preceded  by 
the  great  maces  which  in  1619  replaced  the 
smaller  maces  before  that  time  in  use  (from 
which  great  maces,  the  year  after  their  pur- 
chase, Churchwarden  Atherton  Hough,  now 
marching  in  the  New  Boston  procession,  was 
alleged  to  have  struck  off  the  offending  crosses), 
and  the  Elizabethan  silver-gilt  oar  of  the  Ad- 
miralty jurisdiction;  these  emblems  being 
proudly  borne  by  the  sergeants-at-mace  and 
the  Marshal  of  the  Admiralty,  followed  by  the 
borough  chamberlain  and  other  attendants,  per- 


142    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

chance  with  the  accompaniment  of  music  sup- 
plied by  the  liveried  "waytes,"  whose  salaries 
the  town  had  been  privileged  to  pay  for  genera- 
tions; and  all  to  hear  a  spiritual  discourse,  if 
not  an  Election  Sermon,  two  hours  long. 

But  never  in  the  Old  Boston  was  the  like  of 
this;  and  never  was  such  a  sermon  preached 
in  the  meeting-house  of  the  New  Boston  before 
by  John  Cotton  or  anyone  else.  For  the  sainted 
minister  is  possessed  —  inspired ;  his  eloquence 
is  now  wild  and  passionate,  again  touching  and 
subdued,  plaintive  yet  majestic  and  prophetic 
as  he  foretells  "a  high  and  glorious  destiny  for 
the  newly-gathered  people  of  the  Lord."  The 
sermon  thrills  through  the  congregation,  crushed 
to  the  doors  within  and  crowding  round  them 
without.  Then  the  bewildering  descent,  sudden 
and  tragic,  from  the  pinnacle  of  pastoral  fame. 
Once  again  the  stately  music  and  the  tramping 
of  the  train  as  it  starts  on  the  return  to  the 
town's  hall,  where  a  solemn  feast  is  to  conclude 
the  day's  ceremonies.  But  it  is  never  eaten. 
Can  one  imagine  such  a  disaster  ever  over- 
taking the  Old  Boston!  Dimmesdale  is  ac- 
claimed as  a  hero:  but  pale,  tottering,  all 
thought  of  flight  abandoned,  he  leaves  the 
ranks;  repels  the  proffered  aid  of  Wilson  and 
Bellingham;  and  in  full  gaze  of  the  horrified 
crowd  mounts  with  Hester  and  her  child  the 
familiar  scaffold,  and  there  in  the  hush  of  the 
tumult  makes  his  confession,  and  dies  a  death  of 
triumphant  ignominy. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


What  if,  after  this,  racked  spectators  swore 
they  saw  revealed  a  scarlet  letter  like  Hester 
Prynne's  imprinted  in  the  flesh  of  the  guilty 
Dimmesdale  when,  in  his  convulsive  agony,  he 
tore  the  ministerial  bands  from  before  his  breast? 

"The  Scarlet  Letter"  —  "that  weird  picture  of 
the  strong  contrasts  of  Puritan  life  in  Boston" 
it  has  been  called l  —  is  only  a  clever  story. 
No  one  will  mistake  it  for  history;  but  the 
fabric  of  fancy  of  which  it  is  built  rests  on  a  more 
solid  groundwork,  and  it  has  its  serious  bent. 
Its  author  depicts  the  darker  side  of  Puritanism, 
and  that  none  too  kindly;  but  his  central  idea 
is  not  far-fetched,  because  a  system  which  could 
deal  death  to  Quakers  and  hang  witches,  as 
that  of  New  England  came  to  do  (sparing 
not  even  Anne  Hibbins,  widow  of  William  Hib- 
bins,  a  magistrate  and  a  man  of  note  in  Boston, 
and  sister  of  no  less  a  personage  than  Governor 
Bellingham  himself),  might  well  ordain  the  wear- 
ing of  the  scarlet  letter.  Hawthorne  girds  at 
the  ill-directed  zeal  of  the  Puritan  Fathers  and 
their  wrong  treatment  in  the  flesh  of  a  moral 
wound,  and  he  exposes  the  failure  of  these 
things  as  helps  to  reform.  The  story  is  finely 
told,  and  if  its  setting  is  lugubrious  its  lesson  is 
a  good  one.  It  is  "one  of  the  most  powerful 
and  affecting  stories  ever  written,"  declares  a 
recent  writer  on  Hawthorne.2  "If,"  says  he, 

1  In  "  The  Memorial  History  of  Boston,"  Vol.  I,  p.  360. 
8  Rev.  John  White  Chadwick,  in  the  "Cyclopaedia  of  English  Litera- 
ture," Vol.  Ill,  p.  777. 


144    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


"as  some  complain,  there  is  no  divine  forgive- 
ness in  the  story,  there  is  human  pity  for  the 
sinful  pair.  The  heart  of  the  reader  is  more 
enlisted  on  their  side  than  on  that  of  the  Puritan 
community,  and  their  souls  are  white  compared 
with  that  of  Roger  Chillingworth."  Neverthe- 
less the  story  is  "unconscionably  dark  and  sad," 
and  our  critic  well  says  that  "the  only  bright 
spot  in  it  is  the  scarlet  letter  upon  Hester's 
breast."  And  this  saving  feature  of  the  pic- 
ture, which  is  also  the  most  striking  and  con- 
spicuous, is  not  exaggerated.  It  is  fact  in 
another  form!  Actuality  is  but  carried  one 
step  forward.  There  had  been  brandings  before 
this  with  distinctive  signs  of  ignominy,  and 
fanaticism  was  not  restricted  to  any  given 
fashion  or  shape.  Under  the  old  persecuting 
laws,  we  know,  men  were  burnt  on  the  cheek 
with  a  hot  iron,  and  if  they  dared  to  hide  the 
mark  they  were  liable  to  be  burnt  outright  as 
relapsed  heretics;  or  they  were  condemned  to 
wear  the  device  of  a  faggot  worked  upon  the 
sleeve  of  their  clothing  in  token  of  their  narrow 
escape  from  burning.  So  that  the  scarlet  letter 
was  merely  a  new  application  of  an  old  form 
after  all.  Here,  it  seems  probable,  Hawthorne 
derived  the  emblematic  idea  which  he  utilised 
so  well.  It  was  original  only  in  detail,  not  in 
essential;  and  that  makes  his  story  the  more 
convincing.  And  Hester  Prynne!  The  very 
name  is  borrowed  from  William  Prynne,  that 
martyr  to  a  benighted  bigotry,  the  Puritan 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    145 

hero,  victim  of  Laud  and  the  Star  Chamber, 
whose  ears  were  cropped  in  the  pillory. 

Nor  was  Arthur  Dimmesdale  the  first  to 
secretly  contrive  adultery  and  afterwards  make 
public  confession  of  it.  In  this  Old  Boston  was 
first  in  the  field,  and  if  it  did  not  give  the  cue 
to  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  it  was  at  any  rate 
before  him.  For  in  the  Charter  of  Admiralty 
granted  to  Old  Boston  by  Queen  Elizabeth  was 
a  clause  which  conferred  on  the  Mayor  and 
burgesses  the  power  of  punishing  adulterers,  if 
not  with  a  scarlet  letter,  in  some  such  salutary 
way.  Let  us  see  what  happened.  It  is  told  in  the 
Corporation  records.  There  we  read  that  in 
January,  1574,  in  open  court,  before  the  Mayor, 
Aldermen,  and  Common  Council,  a  certain  Alder- 
man1 "did  openly  confess  wit  ha  penitent  heart, 
and  lowly  submission,  that  he  had  committed 
adultery."  Upon  which  confession  "the  whole 
body,  with  one  consent,  considering  the  same 
offence  to  be  most  odious  before  God,  and  also 
shameful  in  this  world,  to  the  discredit  of  this 
house  and  the  worshipful  companie  of  the  same," 

1  This  was  Christopher  Audley ,  a  nd  that  he  was  a  man'  of  consequence 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  a  year  or  two  before  this  time  he  was  sent  by 
the  Corporation  as  a  deputation  to  London  to  seek  some  means  of 
relieving  the  decay  into  which  the  port  had  fallen  owing  to  the  great 
storm  and  floods  of  1571,  commemorated  since  by  Jean  Ingelow  in  her 
spirited  poem.  Apparently  the  Alderman's  mission  was  successful,  for 
the  following  year  Queen  Elizabeth  granted  to  the  Mayor  and  burgesses 
a  license  to  export  corn  "for  the  relief  and  succour  of  the  borough," 
the  inhabitants  of  which  were  "greatly  impoverished  and  almost 
utterly  declined"  through  the  "damage  and  hurt"  caused  by  "the 
great  violence  and  inundation,  both  of  the  salt  and  of  the  fresh 
waters." 


i46    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

dismissed  the  erring  Alderman  from  his  office  and 
the  liberties  of  the  house.  But  the  Mayor, 
"considering  what  slander  might  ensue  to  the 
Corporation"  if  he  should  put  the  Alderman 
"to  open  punishment"  for  his  offence,  and  also 
that  he  found  the  guilty  Alderman  "to  have 
great  penitence,  and  did  willingly  submit  him- 
self to  such  punishment  as  the  said  Mayor  might 
appoint,  and  for  other  great  signs  of  penitence " 
which  might  appear  in  the  offender,  "did  re- 
fuse to  put  him  to  open  punishment,  but  sen- 
tenced him  to  pay  for  the  said  offence  the  sum 
of  five  pounds  to  the  poor  of  the  borough." 
And  a  certificate  was  made  out  under  the  seal 
of  the  borough  relative  to  the  punishment  of  the 
Alderman  "for  incontinence." 

And  so  it  was  that  the  adulterous  Alderman 
had  not  to  mount  publicly  the  platform  of  the 
pillory  wearing  the  letter  "A"  or  its  equivalent, 
in  expiation  of  his  scarlet  sin.  That  he  got  off 
with  a  contribution  to  the  borough  poor-box 
was  his  good  fortune  and  nothing  else.  Some 
five  years  later,  in  October,  1580,  a  lesser  light 
of  the  Corporation,  a  Common  Councilman,  was 
dismissed  by  that  virtuous  body  "for  incon- 
tinent life,"  and  the  offending  act  is  specified. 
But  "the  Twelve  and  the  Eighteen,"  as  the 
Aldermen  and  Councilmen  described  themselves, 
were  only  human,  and  at  times  they  required 
firm  handling.  Even  the  Mayors,  if  the  truth 
must  be  told,  were  not  always  above  suspicion; 
for  in  1583  we  find  the  entry,  "Every  Mayor, 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    147 


at  the  expiration  of  his  mayoralty,  to  pay  over 
the  ballance  of  his  account,  or  be  committed  to 
prison  until  it  is  paid.'*  This  at  all  events  was 
impartial  dealing.  We  see  that  the  sacred  office 
of  Mayor  itself  was  no  shield  from  righteous 
wrath  incurred.1 

In  1588  the  learned  Dr.  Browne,  Judge  of  the 
Admiralty  Court  at  Boston,  took  the  Charter 
Book  to  London  "to  show  to  the  Lord  of  Canter- 
bury the  charter  concerning  the  punishment  of 
lewd  and  lascivious  livers."  So  it  was  something 
of  a  curiosity  even  in  those  days  of  strange  hap- 
penings. We  are  not  told  what  he  of  Canter- 
bury thought  about  it.  A  few  years  later  it 
was  agreed  that  the  validity  of  the  charter  should 
be  considered  at  the  Lincoln  Assizes,  jointly  by 
the  agents  of  the  Corporation  and  the  bishop. 
But  nothing  came  of  this,  and  as  late  as  1644 
(just  about  the  time  of  Hester  Prynne's  punish- 
ment) it  was  resolved  that  the  charter  "shall 
be  duly  put  into  execution."  And  that  is  the 
last  we  know  of  it. 

Old  Boston  had  been  trending  in  this  direc- 
tion for  a  long  time,  for  as  far  back  as  1557  its 
Corporation  ordered  "that  if  any  alderman 

1 "  The  Twelve  and  the  Eighteen"  were,  however,  sometimes  more 
indulgent  towards  delinquent  officials,  as  we  see  from  an  entry  in  the 
Corporation  records  of  October  2,  1576.  "  William  Kyme,  town  clerk, 
in  prison  upon  an  outlawry.  He  has  occupied  his  office  by  deputy 
to  last  Michaelmas,  and  now  it  is  agreed  that  if  he  can  clear  himself  of 
imprisonment  before  his  next  term  he  shall  be  restored  to  office  in  statu 
quo  primo."  This  William  Kyme,  Town  Clerk  of  Boston,  was  a  younger 
brother  of  Anthony  Kyme,  who  had  served  as  Mayor  only  two  years 
previously. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


swear  either  'by  the  masse*  or  any  other  part 
or  member  of  God,  in  the  Hall  or  any  other  place, 
he  shall  pay  for  every  othe  so  taken. iid.,  and 
lykewyse  everyone  of  the  common  council  shall 
paye  for  every  lyke  defaute  id."  From  the 
"othe"  taking  to  adultery  is  a  far  cry,  and  the 
punishment  when  pecuniary  differed  as  widely. 
But  the  same  Puritanical  spirit  was  behind  it 
all,  and  the  Charter  of  Elizabeth  fell  on  congenial 
ground. 


IX 

PIONEERS   OF   EMPIRE  — LINKS  WITH 

OLD   BOSTON  — THE   PURITAN 

STOCK 


IX 


PIONEERS  OF  EMPIRE  —  LINKS  WITH 

OLD    BOSTON  — THE    PURITAN 

STOCK 

Rise,  too,  ye  shapes  and  shadows  of  the  Past, 
Rise  jrom  your  long-Jorgotten  graves  at  last; 

Revisit  your  familiar  haunts  again, 

The  scenes  oj  triumph,  and  the  scenes  oj  pain. 

Prologue  to  The  New  England  Tragedies 

—  LONGFELLOW 


ET  us  trace  briefly  the  fortunes,  through 
these  times  of  trial  and  turmoil,  of  the 
,  ^~^  Old  Boston  settlers  and  their  friends. 
By  his  second  wife  John  Cotton  had  six  chil- 
dren, three  sons  and  three  daughters.  Seaborn, 
the  eldest,  born  on  the  broad  Atlantic  on  the 
voyage  out,  settled  in  the  ministry  at  Hampton 
in  New  Hampshire,  and  married  Dorothy  Brad- 
street  in  1652,  and  secondly  Prudence  Wade. 
He  was  a  scholar  and  a  preacher  of  repute. 
His  brother,  John,  who  was  noted  for  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  Indian  languages,  and  supervised 
the  issue  of  Eliot's  Bible,  was  minister  at  Ply- 
mouth, Massachusetts,  and  at  Charleston,  South 
Carolina.  Roland,  the  youngest  brother,  died 
of  the  small-pox  in  1649,  within  a  few  days  of 
Sarah,  his  eldest  sister,  who  also  fell  a  victim 


152    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

to  that  dreadful  scourge.  Their  sister  Eliza- 
beth early  married  a  merchant,  Jeremiah  Eggin- 
ton,  and  died  when  only  eighteen.  Maria, 
the  youngest  sister,  espoused  Dr.  Increase 
Mather  and  was  mother  of  the  famous  Cotton 
Mather.  Both  these  gentlemen,  father  and 
son,  were  the  implacable  foes  of  witches;  but 
each  possessed  qualities  we  can  better  admire. 
Cotton  Mather  was  the  most  distinguished  clerical 
writer  of  his  time,  and  in  his  "Magnalia  Christi 
Americana"  has  preserved  for  us  the  ecclesias- 
tical records  of  the  Colony  during  the  first  eighty 
years  of  its  history.  When  Increase  Mather 
set  out  for  England  in  1688  he  was  accom- 
panied by  another  son,  Samuel,  who  became 
minister  at  Whitney  in  Oxfordshire. 

John  Cotton  died  on  December  23,  1652^ 
as  the  result  of  a  cold  caught  as  he  was  crossing 
the  ferry  at  Boston  to  preach  at  the  new 
Cambridge.  This  was  six  months  after  his  son 
Seaborn  had  married  Dorothy  Bradstreet.  Mr 
Cotton  was  only  sixty-seven  when  death  closed 
his  memorable  career.  That  was  an  impressive 
funeral  in  the  burial-ground  of  King's  Chapel, 
when  the  first  teacher  of  Boston's  Church,  lov- 

1  In  his  will,  dated  September  30,  1652,  Cotton  wrote:  "  My 
books  I  estimate  to  the  value  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  (though 
they  cost  me  much  more);  I  leave  them  to  my  two  sons,  Seaborn  and 
John."  Also:  "I  leave  to  my  beloved  wife  all  rents  of  her  house  and 
garden  in  the  Market-place  of  Boston,  Lincolnshire,  which  are  mine  by 
right  of  marriage  with  her,  during  my  life.  I  give  unto  her  what  moneys 
were  left  in  my  brother  Coneye's  hands,  and  are  now  in  the  use  of  my 
sister,  Mary  Coneye,  his  wife,  or  my  cousin  (nephew)  John  Coneye, 
their  son,  so  far  as  any  part  thereof  remaineth  in  their  hands." 


COTTON  MATHER 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    153 

able  and  beloved  in  life  by  all  his  intimates, 
and  forgiven  in  death  doubtless  by  any  who  had 
cause  to  remember  the  unattractive  side  of  his 
character,  was  borne  on  the  shoulders  of  his 
fellow-ministers  to  his  last  long  rest.  His  body 
was  placed  "in  a  tomb  of  brick"  in  the  north 
corner  of  the  graveyard.  Memorial  sermons 
were  preached,  and  "New  England  mourned  her 
loss,"  as  well  she  might.  After  the  death  of 
Winthrop  that  loss  was  greatest  to  the  Colony. 

Teacher  Cotton's  was  a  more  subdued  per- 
sonality than  that  of  his  colleague  Pastor  Wil- 
son, who  survived  him  fifteen  years  and  lived 
to  be  seventy-eight.  It  is  recognised  that 
Cotton's  was  the  deeper  and  finer  scholarship, 
and  that  he  was  a  greater  theologian  and  thinker, 
and  we  know  how  amiable  and  winning  he  could 
be.  Doubtless  Wilson  also  had  his  better 
qualities,  and  time  would  serve  to  bring  them 
out.  He  has  not  lacked  defenders  and  apolo- 
gists, whose  admiration  for  him  is  evidently 
sincere.  One  of  them,  Dr.  Nathaniel  L.  Froth- 
ingham,  who  preached  to  the  First  Church  at 
its  bicentenary  in  1830,  declares  that  "His  zeal 
had  no  mixture  of  sternness  in  it,"  that  he  was 
"a  pattern  of  wisdom  and  gentleness"  and  a 
man  of  "venerable  sweetness,"  and  calls  for 
"blessings  on  his  meek  head!"  This  sympa- 
thetic attitude  was  assisted  probably  by  a  con- 
templation of  the  calmer  eventide  of  that  long 
and  vigorous  life,  when  the  fierce  noonday  of 
discipline  was  past  and  there  was  less  admonish- 


154    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

ing  to  be  done.  Another  New  England  divine, 
the  Reverend  Grindall  Reynolds,  speaking  at 
the  memorial  services  of  the  Church  fifty  years 
later,  looks  a  little  deeper  into  the  question, 
although  his  investigation  leads  him  to  much 
the  same  conclusion.  "That  he  was  a  stern 
Puritan,"  says  this  friendly  critic,  "capable  of 
putting  down  any  man  or  any  opinion  which 
he  thought  threatened  the  kingdom  of  God  in 
this  new  world,  is  clear.  That  he  shared  the 
weakness  and  superstitions  of  the  time,  believing 
in  dreams  and  omens  and  the  private  gift  of 
prophecy,  we  must  admit."  John  Wilson  was 
nevertheless  "an  apostle  of  zeal  and  love."  We 
shall  not  begrudge  him  this  ministerial  tribute 
now. 

John  Cotton  did  more  to  build  up  the  future 
of  the  Colony  which  he  helped  to  establish,  and 
posterity  will  readily  enough  endorse  the  verdict 
pronounced  by  Increase  Mather  that  "both 
Bostons  have  reason  to  honour  his  memory, 
and  New  England  most  of  all,  which  oweth  its 
name  and  being  to  him,  more  than  to  any  other 
person  in  the  world."  By  a  strange  coincidence 
his  widow,  the  erstwhile  Mrs.  Story  of  Old 
Boston,  married,  some  time  after  his  death, 
Richard  Mather,  minister  of  Dorchester,  the 
father  of  Increase  Mather. 

Of  Cotton's  influence  upon  the  life  of  New 
England  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  too  much, 
and  the  extent  of  the  power  he  wielded 
cannot  well  be  over-estimated.  The  part  which 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS   155 

he  played  in  the  painful  and  distressing  events 
associated  with  the  early  history  of  the  Col- 
ony has  been  the  subject  of  much  criti- 
cal study  and  discussion.  He  was  accused 
by  his  contemporaries  of  "acting  with  duplic- 
ity," and  his  popularity  for  a  time  suffered 
some  eclipse.  Yet  to  his  lasting  credit  be  it 
remembered  he  at  least  began  by  urging  leniency 
and  standing  out  for  toleration.  Both  Cotton 
and  Winthrop  were  inherently  tolerant  men.  In 
the  face  of  his  clerical  brethren  Cotton  depre- 
cated the  employment  of  harsh  measures  and 
made  as  light  as  possible  of  the  growing  differ- 
ences of  opinion. 

Before  his  arrival  in  the  Bay  the  case  of  his 
old  friend,  the  erratic  but  liberty-loving  Roger 
Williams,  had  begun  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the 
little  community,  and  ere  he  had  settled  down 
to  the  new  life  the  affair  assumed  a  more  serious 
character.  Probably  Cotton  even  at  that  time 
did  not  believe  in  Williams'  sound  and  just  con- 
tention that  "civil  magistrates  have  no  juris- 
diction over  people's  religious  opinions,  so  long 
as  the  public  peace  is  not  disturbed";  yet, 
when  Williams  was  tried  and  found  guilty  of 
"dangerous  opinions,"  and  ordered  to  be  ban- 
ished, he  was  the  only  one  among  all  the  min- 
isters who  did  not  vote  in  favour  of  the  measure. 
Later  on  he  wrote  to  Williams  that  the  decree 
was  passed  "without  his  counsel  or  consent," 
though  he  added,  not  very  consistently,  that  he 
thought  it  "righteous  in  the  eyes  of  God." 


156   THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

Much  the  same  was  his  attitude  and  bearing 
in  the  midst  of  the  graver  controversy  which 
raged  around  Mrs.  Hutchinson.  Cotton  en- 
deavoured to  stem  the  ministerial  onrush  of 
persecution  and  abuse.  When  the  contest  in- 
creased in  vehemence  he  faced  again  the  united 
front  of  his  clerical  brethren,  practically  all  of 
whom  were  bitter  in  their  wish  to  punish  the 
unfortunate  woman.  Only  at  the  last,  when  he 
had  spoken  on  her  side  and  urged  a  tolerant 
treatment,  did  he  let  himself  be  talked  over  and 
fall  in  with  the  harsher  and  more  narrow  notions 
of  his  brother  clergy. 

"In  ways  like  these  it  may  be  claimed  that 
Cotton  showed  a  lack  of  vigorous  will  power 
and  displayed  his  incapacity  to  stand  by  his  con- 
victions," says  the  Reverend  Paul  Revere  Froth- 
ingham,  on  an  occasion  which  is  noticed  at  the 
end  of  this  chapter;  but  this,  he  thinks,  in  offer- 
ing a  plausible  solution  of  the  question,  "is  not 
the  explanation  of  the  somewhat  puzzling  facts. 
It  was  all,  as  so  often  happens  in  this  world,  a 
matter  of  where  the  emphasis  is  placed.  Cotton 
believed,  perhaps,  in  the  policy  of  exclusion;  but, 
when  it  came  to  practice,  his  kind  heart  did  not 
like  it.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the  em- 
phasis which  Roger  Williams  laid  on  liberty  was 
laid  by  Cotton  upon  law  and  order.  He  saw 
the  need  of  a  firm  and  stable  government.  The 
least  desirable  colonists  were  those  who  acted 
as  disturbers  of  the  peace.  He  shared  the  de- 
lusion, likewise  —  which  was  a  noble,  though 


PURITAN  FATHERS    157 

mistaken  dream  —  that  a  compact  company  of 
like  believers  could  be  gathered  and  perpetuated, 
who  should  realise  and  work  out  for  themselves 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  upon  earth." 

John  Cotton  is  in  some  respects  a  curious 
study.  A  theocracy  seemed  to  him  a  higher 
form  of  government  than  a  democracy.  For 
"if  the  people  are  governors,"  he  asked,  "who 
then  are  the  governed"?  Yet  in  spite  of  theo- 
cratic tendencies  and  practices  he  was  the  great 
champion  and  stern  defender  of  what  is  known 
as  the  "  New  England  Way"  in  matters  of  church 
government.1  That  way  was  the  way  of  "Con- 
gregationalism," a  term  which  Cotton  himself 
is  said  to  have  originated.  The  congregational 
way,  however,  is  the  way  of  pure  democracy 
within  the  Church.  It  meant  entire  liberty  and 
full  equality.  From  it  sprang  widespread  tolera- 
tion and  absolute  freedom  of  religious  thought. 
But  what  was  right  and  best  in  Church  could  not 
long  be  denied  the  State;  and  so  the  "New 
England  Way"  inevitably  broadened  out  until 
it  led  at  last  and  opened  into  the  civic  and  reli- 
gious liberty  which  is  now  enjoyed.  This  we 
may  be  sure  was  never  contemplated  by  John 
Cotton;  but,  as  Emerson  tells  us  of  another 
worker,  in  "The  Problem" — and  here  was  a 
problem  in  the  making  too : 

1  Perhaps  the  best  explanation  to  be  found  in  their  own  writings 
of  the  aim  and  character  of  the  New  England  system  of  church  govern- 
ment, as  distinguished  from  that  of  the  Church  of  England,  is  in  John 
Cotton's  "Keys  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven"  (1644),  and  in  his  "Way 
of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  New  England"  (1645). 


I 

l.« 
1 


158    THE  ROMANTIC  STORYOF 

He  builded  better  than  he  knew; 
The  conscious  stone  to  beauty  grew. 

Cotton's  influence  in  the  Colony  deepened 
with  the  years.  The  first  disturbances  over 
and  past,  he  yielded  to  the  clerical  party  and 
settled  himself  to  sterner  work.  After  that 
there  was  no  abatement  in  his  authority  and 
he  held  an  undisputed  sway.  Professor  Tyler, 
in  his  history  of  American  literature,  calls  him 
"the  unmitered  pope  of  a  pope-hating  Com- 
monwealth," and  says  "he  wielded  with  strong 
and  brilliant  mastership  the  fierce  theocracy 
of  New  England.  Laymen  and  clergymen 
alike  recognised  his  supremacy  and  rejoiced  in 
it."  Amiable  in  disposition  and  essentially 
mild,  among  his  fellows  he  was  well  beloved; 
environment,  not  temperament,  would  quicken 
his  disciplinary  zeal.  Knowing  him  as  we  do  — 
grave,  gentle,  dignified  as  he  was  —  we  may 
believe  that  the  spirit  of  the  administration  in 
which  he  shared  cost  him  many  a  pang.  At 
such  times  he  would  probably  quieten  his  con- 
science by  putting  the  "emphasis  on  law  and 
order."  Still  he  had  his  better  parts.  His 
generosity  we  are  told  was  marked,  and  he  had 
a  noble  scorn  of  worldly  goods.  He  insisted  that 
his  salary  should  come  only  from  the  free-will 
offerings  of  his  people,  and  of  his  limited  means 
he  gave  with  open  hand  to  others.  "In  effect- 
ing his  settlement  in  New  England  he  had  spent 
a  considerable  sum  of  money  for  those  days." 
But  when  the  people  wished  to  reimburse  him 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


he  said  "it  was  not  necessary  in  the  circum- 
stances." He  kept  open  house  and  practised, 
it  was  said,  the  hospitality  of  a  bishop,  paying 
special  attention  to  the  needy  and  distressed. 

But  it  was  to  his  wonderful  pulpit  eloquence 
that  he  mainly  owed  his  influence.  Cotton  first 
and  foremost  was  a  preacher.  Longfellow,  in  his 
"New  England  Tragedies,'*  using  words  which 
an  early  writer  had  employed,  described  him  as  a 

Chrysostom  in  his  pulpit;  Augustine 
In  disputation;  Timothy  in  his  house! 

A  contemporary  of  his  declared  that  Cotton 
"had  such  an  insinuating  and  melting  way  in 
his  preaching  that  he  would  usually  carry  his 
very  adversary  captive  after  the  triumphant 
chariot  of  his  rhetoric."  Another  rapturous 
writer,  bursting  into  verse,  pictures  Cotton  as 

A  man  of  might  at  heavenly  eloquence 
To  fix  the  ear  and  charm  the  conscience; 
As  if  ApoIIos  were  revived  in  him, 
Or  he  had  learned  of  a  Seraphim. 

and  says  of  the  preacher  and  his  pulpit  power: 

Rocks  rent  before  him;  blind  received  their  sight; 
Souls  levelled  to  the  dunghill  stood  upright. 

Yet  in  the  manner  of  his  preaching  John  Cotton 
was  "plain  and  perspicuous";  his  chief  anxiety 
was  to  be  understood.  It  was  that  old  magnetic 
touch  of  his,  the  magic  of  that  personality,  that 
caught  and  held  the  hearer. 

The  great  Puritan  preacher  has  left  an  endur- 
ing name.  "John  Cotton,  his  mark,  very  curi- 


160    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

ously  stamped  on  the  face  of  this  planet;  likely 
to  continue  for  some  time."  So  says  Carlyle,1 
and  there  is  truth  in  the  rugged  words.  Less 
than  four  years  before  his  own  death  Cotton 
lost  his  tried  and  constant  friend  John  Winthrop. 
After  for  some  time  changing  about  the  governor- 
ship and  deputy-governorship  with  Endicott  and 
Dudley,  Winthrop  had  the  principal  post  since 
1646,  the  year  after  his  last  controversy,  de- 
scribed as  "The  Impeachment  of  Winthrop." 
Worn  out  in  the  service  of  the  Colony,  and  feel- 
ing death  approach,  the  good  man  in  February, 
1649,  sent  f°r  the  elders  of  the  Church  to  pray 
with  him.  In  the  parlour  of  his  house,2  imme- 

1With  this  opinion  all  will  agree,  but  there  is  a  strange  want  of 
accuracy  in  the  first  portion  of  the  passage  of  which  it  forms  part  in 
Carlyle's  work,  "Cromwell's  Letters  and  Speeches,  with  Elucidations," 
Vol.  Ill,  p.  197:  "Rev.  John  Cotton  is  a  man  held  in  some  remembrance 
among  our  New  England  friends.  He  had  been  minister  of  Boston  in 
Lincolnshire;  carried  the  name  across  the  ocean  with  him;  fixed  it  upon  a 
new  small  home  he  had  found  there,  which  has  become  a  large  one 
since,  —  the  big,  busy  capital  of  Massachusetts,  —  Boston,  so  called." 
The  whole  passage  is  a  good  example  of  Carlyle's  style,  but  h  is  not,  as 
regards  this  portion  of  it,  correct  history.  In  his  error  as  to  the  naming 
of  Boston,  Carlyle  has  not  lacked  followers.  One  of  them,  prominent 
at  Old  Boston,  in  a  newspaper  sketch  he  published  at  the  Sexcentenary 
Celebration  of  St.  Botolph's  church,  said:  "Cotton  died  in  1652,  two 
years  after  the  settlement  at  Trimountain  had  adopted  the  name  Boston. 
The  sect  which  he  founded  has  long  since  lost  its  civil  power,  and  has 
become  Unitarian  in  religion."  This  is  worse  than  Carlyle,  and  with 
less  excuse.  Which  shall  we  say  is  the  more  astonishing,  the  belated 
renaming  of  the  Trimountain  settlement  or  this  curt  dismissal  of  "the 
sect"? 

2Winthrop's  residence  stood  on  what  is  now  Washington  Street, 
just  opposite  the  foot  of  School  Street;  the  garden  is  occupied  by  the 
Old  South.  The  house  was  burnt  up  as  firewood  by  the  British  soldiers 
in  1775,  while  they  were  using  the  meeting-house  as  a  stable  for  their 
cavalry  horses. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    161 

diately  after  he  had  breathed  his  last,  a  consulta- 
tion was  held  by  the  chief  persons  of  Boston  as 
to  the  order  of  the  funeral,  "it  being  the  desire 
of  all  that  in  that  solemnity  it  may  appear  of 
what  precious  account  and  desert  he  hath  been 
and  made  blessed  his  memory."  These  were 
the  words  used  by  John  Wilson,  John  Cotton, 
Richard  Bellingham,  and  John  Clark  in  a  letter 
addressed  to  John  Winthrop  of  Connecticut 
"from  his  father's  parlour"  on  the  same  day, 
announcing  that  the  funeral  would  take  place 
on  the  3  (13)  of  April,  and  despatched  by  a 
swift  Indian  messenger.  Accordingly  the  re- 
mains were  buried  with  "great  solemnity  and 
honour"  in  the  King's  Chapel  burial-ground, 
where  the  old  Winthrop  tomb  is  still  to  be  seen. 

Thomas  Leverett  and  Atherton  Hough  pre- 
deceased their  friend  and  leader  in  New  Eng- 
land, the  once  Vicar  of  Old  Boston.  Both  died 
in  1650,  Leverett  in  February  and  Hough  in 
September  of  that  year.  Mr.  Leverett's  widow 
lived  six  years  longer.  Mrs.  Hough  died  in 
1643;  but  Atherton  married  a  second  wife,  who 
survived  him. 

Atherton's  only  son,  the  Reverend  Samuel 
Hough  of  Reading,  was  ordained  a  few  months 
before  his  father's  death;  he  married  Sarah, 
daughter  of  the  Reverend  Zechariah  Symmes, 
and  died  at  Boston  in  1662,  leaving  a  son, 
Samuel,  who  married  Ann  Rainsford  about 
1675  and  had  two  sons,  Samuel  and  Atherton, 
who  died  early  in  life.  Atherton  Hough  of  Old 


^1 


I 


162    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


Boston  filled  sundry  civil  offices  in  New  Bos- 
ton; but  there  were  no  churchwardens  there 
and  no  carven  images  to  break  on  church 
towers. 

Richard  Bellingham,  the  one-time  Recorder 
of  Old  Boston,  looms  large  in  the  New  England 
life.  He  was  made  Deputy-Governor  of  Mas- 
sachusetts in  1635  and  Governor  in  1641;  he 
was  re-elected  to  that  high  office  in  1654  and 
again  in  1665,  and  remained  in  it  till  his  death 
in  December,  1672*;  he  was  then  the  last 
patentee  named  in  the  Charter  and  was  eighty 
years  of  age.  Bellingham  married  at  Boston, 
for  a  second  wife,  Penelope  Pelham,  who  sur- 
vived him  thirty  years,  dying  in  1702.  This 
lady,  Winthrop  relates  in  his  Journal  (November 
9,  1641),  was  "snatched  from  another,"  the 
Governor  marrying  her  himself,  much  to  the 
scandal  of  the  magistrates.  She  was  the  sister 
of  Herbert  Pelham,  a  prominent  citizen.  The 
family,  however,  made  little  impression  on  Ameri- 
can history.  Bellingham's  eldest  son,  Samuel, 
lived  at  London  most  of  his  life  after  graduating 
at  Harvard;  another  son,  John,  was  at  Harvard 
in  1 66 1,  but  disappeared  so  completely  that  the 
date  of  his  death  is  unrecorded  in  the  College 

1  Governor  Bellingham  after  death  was  placed  in  the  South  burial- 
ground,  afterwards  known  as  "  The  Granary."  An  incident  connected 
with  the  Bellingham  tomb  would  seem  to  show  that  in  early  times  the 
ground  was  ill-chosen  for  a  cemetery.  The  Bellingham  family  having 
become  extinct,  the  tomb  was  given  to  Governor  James  Sullivan,  who, 
on  going  to  repair  it,  found  it  partly  filled  with  water,  "and  the  coffin 
and  remains  of  the  old  governor  floating  around  in  the  ancient  vault" 
—  and  this  after  being  buried  nearly  a  century. 


Richard  Bellingham  that 
}f  speech'*  and  "had  a  stern 
look."  He  was  a  rigid  religious  disciplinarian, 
and  so  opposed  to  outside  interference  that  he 
prosecuted  without  mercy  the  Quakers,  who 
presumably  owed  much  of  their  punishment  to 
him.  Yet,  while  he  strictly  upheld  the  formal- 
ism of  the  Puritan  worship,  he  is  said  to  have 
been  "a  devout  and  sincere  Christian";  while 
on  his  uprightness  of  character  none  has  thrown 
doubt,  and  it  has  been  claimed  for  him  that  he 
was  more  tolerant  and  merciful  than  many  of 
his  fellow-magistrates  were,  and  that  he  and 
some  of  the  magistrates  exhibited  on  occasion 
less  vindictiveness  than  the  ministers  did.  But 
he  was  much  given  to  melancholy  moods,  a  con- 
dition which  would  not  help  to  soften  his  natural 
austerity;  and  the  evidence  tends  to  prove  that 
his  reason  eventually  failed  him.  That  happily 
was  at  the  end  only  of  his  long  and  strenuous 
course;  and  the  statement  of  the  Quaker  his- 
torian that  he  "died  distracted"  was  unsympa- 
thetic, if  not  altogether  untrue. 

The  terrible  fate  of  Bellingham's  sister,  Anne 
Hibbins,  must  have  been  a  blow  to  him.  It  is 
somewhere  hinted  that  her  execution  may  have 
been  intended  as  an  admonition  to  Bellingham 
himself!  If  so,  it  was  a  poor  way  of  showing 
resentment.  Anne  Hibbins  was  evidently  un- 
popular; and  the  same  can  hardly  be  said  of 
the  man  who  was  retained  in  the  chief  magis- 
tracy for  so  many  years.  "This  venerable 


164    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

witch-lady,"  Hawthorne  dubs  the  persecuted 
widow;  and  he  speaks  of  her  as  "that  ugly- 
tempered  lady,"  and  "Old  Mistress  Hibbins, 
the  bitter-tempered  sister  of  the  magistrate." 
Now  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  is  not  history;  but 
it  rests  on  tradition  more  or  less,  and  it  no  doubt 
reflects  something  of  the  truth  on  this  and  other 
matters  as  it  came  to  be  handed  down.  We  will 
eliminate  the  witch  and  allow  that  Mistress 
Hibbins  was  a  scold.  Her  cruel  death  was  not 
one  whit  the  less  an  outrageous  crime;  and  it 
can  but  be  supposed  that,  if  Bellingham  was 
considered  in  connection  with  it,  it  was  from  a 
warped  notion  of  requiting  thereby  his  treat- 
ment of  the  Quakers. 

Bellingham  was  succeeded  as  Governor  by 
John  Leverett,  son  of  Thomas,  the  husband  of 
Hannah  Hudson,  who  accompanied  her  parents 
to  the  Colony  in  1635,  and  afterwards  of  Sarah 
Sedgwick.  John  had  already  been  the  military 
Major-General  of  the  State  for  ten  years  when 
he  was  called  on  to  follow  Mr.  Bellingham  in 
the  civil  capacity.  He  remained  Governor  until 
his  death  in  1679.  A  curious  story  is  related 
of  Leverett.  At  the  Restoration  he  returned 
to  England  as  a  kind  of  ambassador  from  the 
Colony  and  Charles  II  knighted  him.  But  he 
was  not  proud  of  the  distinction  at  all.  The 
title  was  never  used,  and  even  the  fact  of 
the  knighthood  was  concealed  from  the  public. 
His  son,  Hudson,  is  reported  to  have  "main- 
tained but  an  indifferent  character";  but  a 


Reproduced  from  an  old  Engraving,  through  the  Courtesy  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical    Society 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    165 

second  John  Leverett  came  to  be  President  of 
Harvard  College. 

Of  the  Governor's  daughters  Elizabeth  mar- 
ried Dr.  Elisha  Cooke;  Anne  espoused  John 
Hubbard;  Mary  married  first  Paul  Dudley  (son 
of  Governor  Thomas  Dudley),  and  secondly 
Colonel  Penn  Townsend;  Hannah  married 
Thomas  Davis;  Rebecca  became  Mrs.  James 
Lloyd;  and  Sarah  was  the  wife  of  Colonel 
Nathaniel  Byfield. 

The  next  Governor  of  Massachusetts  was 
another  Lincolnshire  man,  Simon  Bradstreet, 
who  retained  the  office  until  1686.  He  carried 
the  earliest  traditions  of  the  Colony  farthest  into 
the  future,  for  he  was  the  last  of  its  govern- 
ors before  it  became  a  royal  province.  "The 
Nestor  of  New  England"  they  called  him.  Mr. 
Bradstreet  married  first  Anne  Dudley,  the 
poetess  (daughter  of  Thomas  Dudley),  and  had 
a  large  family;  his  second  wife  was  the  niece  of 
John  Winthrop;  he  died  at  Salem  eleven  years 
after  relinquishing  the  governorship.  Brad- 
street,  it  will  be  remembered,  went  out  to  New 
England  in  1630. 

Another  colonist  who  came  over  with  Winthrop 
was  William  Coddington,  who  was  a  prominent 
resident  and  merchant  of  Boston  and  is  said  to 
have  built  the  first  brick  house  erected  in  the 
town.  A  warm  supporter  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson, 
when  Winthrop  was  elected  over  Vane  in  their 
memorable  contest,  he  was  dropped  from  the  gov- 
ernment, but  the  freemen  immediately  returned 


166   THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

him  as  a  deputy.  In  April,  1638,  Coddington, 
with  others,  removed  to  the  island  of  Aquid- 
neck  and  founded  the  State  of  Rhode  Island.  He 
was  from  Lincolnshire,  and  the  Plymouth  Dr. 
Fuller  describes  him  as  "a  Boston  man*';  his 
home  was  at  Alford,  but  he  associated  with  the 
Boston  men  in  promoting  their  movement. 

One  of  John  Cotton's  fellow- voyagers  of  1633, 
John  Haynes,  was  a  governor  of  both  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut,  and  died  in  1654. 
Mr.  Hooker,  who  went  with  him,  had  then  been 
dead  seven  years;  but  Mr.  Stone,  another  of 
the  group,  lived  till  1663. 

Edmund  Quincy,  Cotton's  Fishtoft  compan- 
ion, died  three  years  after  the  landing  in  America ; 
he  left  a  son  of  the  same  name,  who  was  a  mili- 
tary colonel  in  the  Colony  and  lived  till  1698; 
and  from  this  son  descended  Josiah  Quincy,  Jr., 
a  prominent  figure  in  American  history,  and, 
in  the  female  line,  John  Adams  and  John  Quincy 
Adams,  the  second  and  sixth  Presidents  of  the 
United  States. 

Notable  also  in  after  years  was  the  name 
of  Hutchinson  in  America;  it  was  preserved 
through  the  lad  Edward,  son  of  William  and 
Anne  Hutchinson,  who  accompanied  John  Cot- 
ton. Edward,  when  a  more  settled  state  of 
affairs  enabled  him  to  do  so,  returned  to  New 
Boston  from  Rhode  Island;  and  his  numerous 
descendants  included  Thomas  Hutchinson,  the 
famous  Governor  of  Massachusetts  Bay  under 
the  second  Charter,  and  afterwards  under  the 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    167 

British  Government,  whose  British  sympathies 
at  the  revolutionary  period  naturally  made  him 
unpopular  in  the  Colony,  the  history  of  which 
he  wrote.  Eventually  he  sailed  for  England, 
where  he  refused  a  baronetcy  but  accepted  a 
life  pension;  he  died  at  Brompton  and  was 
buried  at  Croydon. 

Another  and  a  closer  link  with  Old  Boston 
had  long  before  that  been  broken  by  the  death 
in  1679  °f  Samuel  Whiting,  minister  for  forty- 
three  years  of  Lynn,  Mass.,  and  formerly 
Rector  of  Skirbeck.  He  lived  to  be  eighty-two, 
and  his  wife,  Elizabeth  St.  John  of  the  old  days, 
died  at  Lynn,  only  two  years  before  him,  at 
the  age  of  seventy-two.  Mr.  Whiting's  second 
son,  John,  was  a  graduate  of  Harvard  College; 
and,  returning  to  England,  became  in  1649 
Rector  of  Leverton  near  Boston,  where  both  he 
and  his  wife  Esther  were  buried  on  the  same 
day,  October  18,  1689.  Samuel  Whiting,  a  later 
representative  of  the  family,  was  appointed 
Rector  of  the  adjoining  parish  of  Fishtoft  in 
1 739,  in  which  year  the  advowson  of  the  rectory 
was  assigned  to  James  Whiting.  Samuel  died 
in  1781,  the  last  of  his  line  in  Old  England  in 
male  descent;  but  the  American  branch  of  the 
family  continued  to  flourish  and  spread  and 
boasted  among  its  sons  the  learned  William 
Whiting,  jurist  and  President  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Historical  Society. 

We  see  here  something  of  the  importance  of 
the  contribution  to  American  life  and  history 


": 


168    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

of  that  mother  of  empire,  Old  Boston.  To 
recall  these  names  is  to  bring  to  mind  the 
pioneer  builders  of  the  United  States.  Where 
they  led,  others  followed;  but  the  Puritan 
emigration  as  a  distinctive  movement  ceased 
with  the  assembling  of  the  Long  Parliament  in 
England.  The  exodus  is  said  by  that  time  to 
have  taken  out  fully  twenty-one  thousand,  two 
hundred  English  men,  women,  and  children  to 
the  great  land  of  the  West.  During  the  twelve 
years  of  Laud's  administration,  1628-40,  some 
four  thousand  persons  fled  from  tyranny  and 
persecution  at  home  to  the  four  settlements  of 
New  England.  Many  of  them  were  disap- 
pointed in  not  finding  there  the  ideal  state  of 
things  they  had  believed  to  exist.  The  oppor- 
tunity of  returning  with  renewed  hope  to  the 
old  country,  now  in  revolt,  must  therefore  not 
have  been  unwelcome  to  them.  There  were 
enterprises  in  Church  and  State  which  demanded 
just  such  men  as  these  New  England  colonists. 
So  that  to  some  extent  the  tide  of  emigration 
flowed  back  from  west  to  east,  and  those  whom 
it  carried  with  it  threw  themselves  into  the 
struggle,  and  filled  eventually,  many  of  them, 
high  places  in  the  public  service.1  But  while 
the  Revolution  in  England  drained  away  for 

1  It  was  even  suggested  by  certain  of  the  Parliamentary  leaders  that 
a  ship  should  be  sent  out  to  bring  home  John  Cotton  and  other  prominent 
colonists.  This  was  not  done;  but  Cromwell  corresponded  with  the 
New  England  ministers,  and  in  a  letter  "For  my  esteemed  friend,  Mr. 
Cotton"  wrote:  "Truly  I  am  ready  to  serve  you,  and  the  rest  of  my 
brethren  in  the  Church  with  you.  Pray  for  me;  salute  all  firesides, 
though  unknown.  I  rest  your  affectionate  friend." 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    169 

the  time  her  manhood,  it  secured  for  Massachu- 
setts freedom  of  development  in  the  years  to 
come.  And  the  Colonies  in  the  meantime  made 
good  material  progress.  Towns  and  villages 
were  on  all  hands  springing  up;  an  export  trade 
in  furs  and  timber  was  established;  grain  and 
cured  fish  were  being  carried  to  the  West  Indies; 
and  in  1643  there  were  ships  on  the  stocks  of 
four  hundred  tons  burden.  A  university,  Har- 
vard College,  was  founded  as  early  as  1636;  by 
1652  the  Colony  had  so  far  advanced  as  to  set 
up  its  own  coinage. 

All  this,  and  more  besides,  in  spite  of  the 
religious  unrest,  which  righted  itself  in  the  end. 
After  the  first  thirty  years  of  relentless  rule 
the  government  of  the  Colony  was  relaxed  and 
assumed  a  milder  character.  Visionary  and  im- 
practicable as  was  the  theocracy  which  under- 
lay the  Puritan  commonwealth,  the  experiment 
was  inspired  by  a  noble  aim  and  was  backed 
by  intense  earnestness  and  sincerity.  And  in  a 
good  deal  that  followed  excuse  can  be  found  for 
its  framers.  It  must  be  admitted  that  they 
had  much  to  try  them.  Bigotry  and  intolerance 
were  not  the  only  factors  in  fashioning  their 
conduct.  Having  neglected  at  the  outset  to 
secure  themselves  from  the  intrusion  of  obnoxious 
strangers,  and  being  morbidly  apprehensive  lest 
their  enterprise  should  be  frustrated  before  it 
could  strike  root,  they  devised  measures  of 
repression  which  speedily  led  to  injustice  and 
cruelty.  It  is  to  be  remembered  also  that  at 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


home,  where  there  seemed  less  reason  for  dread- 
ing the  influences  of  fanaticism  and  the  ingenu- 
ities of  heresy,  the  powers  anticipated  the  course 
here  pursued  in  dealing  with  the  same  class  of 
offenders.  The  penalties  of  fining,  impris- 
onment, scourging,  and  mutilation  inflicted  in 
Boston  were,  after  all,  only  imitations  of  those 
practised  in  England. 

The  age  was  steeped  in  superstition,  that 
handmaid  of  persecution  and  cruelty.  Laud, 
the  last  advocate  of  judicial  torture  in  Eng- 
land, was  so  prone  to  it  that  his  life  seems  to 
have  been  passed  in  terror  of  the  omens  of  ill- 
luck  which  the  incidents  of  his  days,  and  espe- 
cially the  dreams  of  his  nights,  were  continually 
suggesting  to  his  distorted  fancy.  Macaulay 
in  a  well-known  passage  quotes  a  number  of 
these  ominous  visions  from  entries  in  Laud's 
own  diary.  If  this  spirit  could  thrive  so  well 
at  home,  how  much  more  was  it  not  likely 
to  flourish  in  New  England?  It  concentrated 
itself  strongly  in  the  narrow  and  gloomy  life 
of  the  colonist  community,  whose  rulers  were 
ever  on  the  alert  for  visible  and  invisible  foes. 
The  former  appeared  in  the  persons  of  here- 
tics and  "erratic  spirits"  against  the  craft  and 
subtlety  of  which  they  said  the  people  must 
be  protected.  The  latter  had  their  shape  in  the 
biblical  "familiar  spirits,"  and  "wizards  that 
peep  and  that  mutter,"  which  it  was  imagined 
might  well  be  lurking  with  malevolent  design  in 
the  fastnesses  of  this  wilderness  abode. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


After  the  Antinomians  came  the  Anabaptists, 
and  then  the  Quakers,  with  their  "illumina- 
tions," their  "inspirations,"  and  their  "revela- 
tions," to  plague  the  magistrates  and  ministers. 
Of  the  Quakers,  who  were  dealt  with  at  Boston 
from  1656  to  six  years  onward  —  Cotton  Mather 
called  them  "an  enchanted  people"  —  they  had 
heard  with  horror  and  dread  ten  years  before 
any  of  them  set  foot  in  the  Colony.  Upon  them, 
in  vindication  of  their  outraged  authority,  they 
followed  up  their  penal  inflictions  through  ban- 
ishments, imprisonments,  fines,  scourgings,  and 
mutilations,  to  the  crowning  crime  of  hanging 
four  of  them  upon  the  gallows,  a  barbarity 
which  darkly  stains  the  early  pages  of  New  Eng- 
land's history.  John  Norton,  who,  four  years 
after  the  death  of  Cotton,  had  come  from  Ipswich 
to  be  his  successor,  exercised  a  baleful  influence 
in  these  proceedings. 

Not  only  did  these  rugged  rulers  of  an  infant 
State  put  down  with  a  high  hand  all  teaching 
which  they  deemed  to  be  false  and  unscriptural, 
but  their  dogmas  and  disciplines  harassed  and 
oppressed  their  own  people.  The  inquisitorial 
severity  of  the  Church  made  it  almostjas  diffi- 
cult to  retain  membership  as  it  was  to  secure  it; 
and  the  Church  itself  was  rent  with  schisms  over 
abstruse  points  of  doctrine  and  wrangled  about 
theological  terms  which  were  soon  to  become 
obsolete.  Its  leaders  revelled  in  disputes  con- 
fined to  the  exposition  and  interpretation  of 
Holy  Writ;  but  once  the  argument  was  taken 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


out  of  the  Bible  they  found  themselves  at  a 
disadvantage,  and  fell  back  upon  more  drastic 
methods  of  settling  the  question. 

With  all  their  faults  these  men  were  fearless. 
Intolerance  was  their  besetting  sin.  Their 
methods  were  as  rigid  as  themselves.  "The 
Puritan  mode  of  worship  and  service,"  as  Dr. 
Ellis  said  in  speaking  to  their  Church  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  after  it  was  founded, 
"severely  naked  and  unwinning  as  it  was,  met 
the  occasion  and  the  time  in  its  strain  upon  the 
austere  and  intense  favour  of  spirit  in  those 
exiles.  But  with  softening  and  enriching  ex- 
periences, it  proved  blank  and  drear.  It  was 
suited  to  men  stern  and  earnest  in  their  pitch 
and  style  of  piety  —  hardly  nutritive,  winning, 
or  wreathed  enough  for  women,  and  ineffective, 
juiceless,  and  repulsive  for  children.  The  'Milk 
for  Babes/  provided  by  the  first  teacher,  John 
Cotton,  was  highly  concentrated,  and  not  easily 
assimilated  for  nutriment."  Yet  somehow  they 
thrived  upon  it.  They  may  have  been  cold  of 
conduct  if  not  of  temperament,  grim  and  grace- 
less outwardly,  and  "sour-visaged";  but  acidity 
is  not  without  its  value,  for  the  sour  leaven 
ferments  the  wheat,  which  makes  the  wholesome 
bread,  the  staff  of  life.  May  the  leaven  of 
Puritanism  long  be  retained! 

In  spite  of  their  shortcomings,  we  cannot  but 
admire  the  Puritan  stock  for  their  grand 
qualities  and  for  the  great  results  they  achieved 
for  civil  and  religious  liberty.  Out  of  such  living 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    173 

stones  were  the  foundations  of  freedom  laid. 
"It  was  to  this  sect,"  says  the  historian  Hume, 
"that  the  English,"  and  he  might  have  added 
the  Americans,  "owe  the  whole  freedom  of  their 
constitution."  "The  Puritans,"  writes  Hallam 
— that  son  of  later  Old  Boston,  where  his  mem- 
ory is  perpetuated  in  the  church  —  "were 
the  depositaries  of  the  sacred  fire  of  liberty." 
Gone  is  the  intolerance  of  the  seventeenth 
century;  but  have  we  in  the  twentieth  their 
sturdy,  unflinching  faith?  Their  theocracy  re- 
ceived its  death-blow  in  1664  with  the  repeal 
of  the  law  restricting  the  franchise  to  church 
members;  finally  it  died  out  twenty  years  after 
when  the  Colony  lost  its  Charter  and  passed 
under  royal  sway. 

After  the  Revolution  more  and  more  diver- 
sity characterised  the  religious  life  of  Boston. 
Revolt  from  the  civil  authority  brought  with 
it  changes  in  the  recognised  order  of  religion. 
This  was  inevitable,  because  the  established 
church  of  New  England,  the  Calvinistic  Congre- 
gationalism handed  on  from  the  Puritan  Fathers, 
was  protected  by  civil  laws  and  supported  by 
the  community.  Church  and  State  were  one. 
But  now  the  Puritan  Church  was  disestablished. 
There  was  on  the  one  hand  a  growth  of  liberty 
of  thought  and  speech,  and  the  old  faith  largely 
gave  place  to  the  new  theology.  The  old 
orthodoxy  was  broadened  and  brightened  and 
made  more  genial  and  attractive;  worship  was 
remodelled  and  modernised. 


174    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

Attempts  to  introduce  the  Prayer-book  service 
to  New  England  were  at  first  made  in  vain,  but 
after  a  time  its  advocates  prevailed,  and  for 
two  years  the  Old  South  was  by  arrangement 
used  alternately  by  Puritans  and  Episcopalians. 
The  first  Prayer-book  service  was  held  in  Boston 
in  1686,  when  Robert  Ratcliffe,  a  clergyman  who 
had  come  out  in  the  Rose  frigate,  which  brought 
the  commissions  of  the  new  administrators  on 
the  withdrawal  of  the  Colonial  charter,  preached 
in  the  Townhouse  and  read  Common  Prayer  in 
his  surplice,  "which  was  so  great  a  novelty  to 
the  Bostonians  that  he  had  a  very  large  audi- 
ence." Cotton's  son-in-law,  Increase  Mather, 
referred  to  the  Prayer-book  services  as  "Those 
broken  Responds  and  shreds  of  Prayers  which 
the  Priests  and  People  toss  between  them  like 
Tennis  Balls";  but  this  did  not  diminish  the 
desire  of  many  for  a  mutual  and  common  ser- 
vice in  which  all  took  part.  King's  Chapel  was 
opened  in  1689;  the  first  wooden  structure  gave 
place  to  a  stone  church  in  1754;  and  until  the 
revolt  of  the  Colonies  it  remained  the  home  of 
the  Church  of  England  in  America. 

Meanwhile  Christ  Church  had  been  built  in 
1722.  Though  it  was  closed  at  the  outset  of  the 
war  and  not  regularly  used  until  1 778,  it  rendered 
an  important  service  to  the  patriot  cause,  for 
from  the  window  of  its  tower,  on  the  night  of 
April  1 8,  1775,  flashed  the  signal  lights  which 
sent  Paul  Revere  on  his  famous  ride.  Trinity, 
the  third  Episcopal  church  in  Boston,  then  of 


THE  FIRST  CHURCH,  BOSTON,  MASS 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    175 

plain  wood,  was  opened  for  service  in  1735.  It 
was  replaced  in  1828  by  a  Gothic  building, 
destroyed  by  fire  in  1872;  and  the  present  im- 
pressive edifice  was  consecrated  in  1 877.  Trinity 
Church  has  the  proud  distinction  of  being  one 
of  the  few  churches  in  the  North  which  joined 
in  the  patriotic  movement  for  independence. 
Since  those  times  the  Episcopal  Church  in 
Boston  —  the  heart  of  the  diocese  of  Massa- 
chusetts —  has  kept  pace  with  the  life  of  the 
city,  and  Puritanism  has  been  no  barrier  to  its 
growth. 

Through  all  the  chances  and  changes  of  the 
intervening  years,  the  veteran  First  Church  in 
Boston  still  exists  and  is  a  flourishing  institu- 
tion. The  progress  which  those  years  have  wit- 
nessed is  marked  by  the  wide  difference  between 
the  house  set  up  by  Winthrop  and  his  associates, 
the  low  building  with  its  mud  walls  and  thatched 
roof,  which  stood  at  the  juncture  of  State  and 
Devonshire  Streets,  and  the  fine  modern  sanctu- 
ary of  their  successors  at  the  corner  of  Berkeley 
and  Marlborough  Streets.  The  original  records 
of  covenant  and  membership  are  still  there  pre- 
served; while  stained  into  an  illuminated  window 
is  a  representation  of  the  covenant,  "so  calmly 
and  sweetly  worded  in  our  dear  old  English 
tongue."  At  the  portal  of  this  house,  the  fifth 
since  1632,  stands  the  effigy  of  Governor  Win- 
throp, who  worshipped  under  Cotton  until 
nearly  the  end  of  his  ministry;  and  here  in 
1907  was  done  the  crowning  honour  to  the  name 


.. 


176    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

and  fame  of  John  Cotton  in  America,  when 
a  handsome  memorial,  enclosing  a  recumbent 
statue  in  marble,  was  raised  to  the  Puritan 
divine  who  "gave  form  and  inspiration  to  the 
ecclesiastical  polity  known  as  the  New  Eng- 
land Way,"  of  which  he  was  the  champion  and 
defender.  Presented  by  living  descendants 
of  him  whose  lifework  it  commemorates,  the 
monument  was  transferred  to  the  church  on 
October  10,  just  two  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  years  after  his  appointment  as  teacher,  at 
a  service  which  was  attended  by  members  of 
the  Colonial  Society  of  Massachusetts,  the 
Massachusetts  and  the  Arlington  Historical 
Societies,  and  kindred  bodies.  The  gathering 
was  in  fact  one  of  Cotton's  descendants,  pres- 
ent or  represented  to  the  tenth  generation.  In 
their  name  (after  an  address  by  the  Reverend 
Paul  Revere  Frothingham,  referred  to  earlier  in 
this  chapter)  formal  transfer  of  the  memorial  was 
made  by  the  Hon.  Charles  F.  Adams,  LL.D.,  its 
chief  promoter.  It  was  accepted  on  behalf  of  the 
church  by  its  minister,  the  Reverend  Charles 
E.  Park,  himself  a  descendant  of  Cotton  on  the 
female  side.  Although  Mr.  Adams,  with  a  reso- 
lution to  be  just,  which  some  of  us  consider  car- 
ried him  too  far,  had  as  an  historian  described 
John  Cotton  as  the  "  Inquisitor  in  Chief"  of  the 
early  Colony  —  adding  that  he  searched  out 
every  form  of  heresy  and  exercised  a  rigid  disci- 
pline over  men's  opinions,  and  speaking  of  "an 
ignominious  page  in  an  otherwise  worthy  life" — 


STATUE  OF  GOVERNOR  JOHN  WINTHROP,  STANDING  OUTSIDE  THE 
FIRST  CHURCH,  BOSTON,  MASS. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    177 

he  nevertheless  allowed  in  this  commemoration 
that  Cotton  stands  conspicuously  forth  with 
Winthrop  as  the  great  typical  exponent  of  the 
spiritual  and  civil  polity  which  is  identified  with 
the  name  of  New  England.  The  claim  for  John 
Cotton  made  by  these  descendants  is  that  to 
Massachusetts,  and  through  Massachusetts  to 
New  England  and  America,  he  was  what  Luther 
was  to  Germany,  what  Calvin  was  to  France  and 
the  Low  Countries,  what  Knox  was  to  Scotland 
—  a  great,  far-reaching,  formative  influence. 


THE  COTTON  MEMORIAL  IN  THE  FIRST  CHURCH,  BOSTON,  MASS., 
ERECTED  BY  JOHN  COTTON'S  DESCENDANTS  IN  1907 


The  inscription  over  the  monument  says  of  Cotton:  "Regardless  of  preferment  and 
nspicuous  as  a  Puritan  Divine  he  became  the  object  of  Prelatical  Persecution.  '  Un- 
ved  bu  influence  and  unbrihed  7>?/  nnin'  he  then  sntinhl  ref-tmo  •»'•»  A7*>*»  //.,../,,.,./ 


his  Age.'     Dead,  he  is  remembered  as  'Patriarch  of  the  Massachusetts  Theocracy.' " 
Built  into  the  base  below  the  recumbent  figure  of  the  Memorial  is  a  fragment  of  the 


L/CK/U/  me  i  Ki-urnucnt-  jiyuit  vj   inv  iviemoriul  ti 
original  stonework  of  the  great  West  doorway  of  old  Boston  Church. 


X 


BOSTON:    EAST   AND   WEST 


X 


BOSTON:    EAST  AND  WEST 

And  thus  the  Old  and  New  World  reached  their  bands 

Across  the  water,  and  the  friendly  lands 

Talked  with  each  other  from  their  severed  strands. 

— WHITTIER 

' II  ^HE  war  which  resulted  in  the  American 
Colonies  throwing  off  the  British  yoke 
happily  led  to  no  ultimate  or  permanent 
estrangement  of  the  peoples  of  the  two  countries, 
who  in  race  and  blood  are  one,  claiming  a  com- 
mon ancestry,  speaking  the  same  tongue,  pos- 
sessing similar  sentiments,  united  still,  as  Burke 
said  of  the  relationship  in  the  House  of  Commons 
at  the  time  of  the  rupture,  by  "ties  which, 
though  light  as  air,  are  strong  as  links  of  iron." 
Good  feeling  has  generally  prevailed,  and  the 
bond  of  union  between  the  nations,  though  one 
of  kindred  only,  has  survived  in  strengthened 
form  the  test  of  time. 

If  this  be  true,  as  it  unquestionably  is,  of  the 
relations  of  England  and  America,  how  much 
more  forcibly  may  it  not  be  stated  of  those  of 
the  two  Bostons.  For  the  Boston  of  Massa- 
chusetts in  the  West  was  named  after  the  Boston 
of  Lincolnshire  in  the  East;  the  parent  town 
has  always  taken  a  proud  interest  in  the  progress 
and  welfare  of  the  beautiful  city  by  the  Charles 


182    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


River;  and  the  daughter  community  has  equally 
displayed  a  deep  interest  in  and  veneration  for 
the  mother.  Well  may  Old  Boston  be  proud 
of  her  Puritan  progeny  across  the  seas  —  of 
Massachusetts,  the  first  State  in  the  world  to 
free  the  slaves;  of  Boston,  the  intellectual 
metropolis  of  the  American  Republic,  while 
Washington  is  its  governmental  and  New  York 
its  commercial  capital.  Associations  practical 
as  well  as  sentimental  draw  closely  together  the 
two  Bostons,  both  seaports,  the  one  with  a  glori- 
ous past  reaching  back  through  the  centuries,  the 
other  with  a  great  present,  and  each  with  its 
historic  struggle  for  freedom. 

The  country  all  around  the  English  Boston 
is  full  of  strange  interest.  The  adjacent  sea 
washes  a  coast-line  as  flat  as  the  fens  to  which 
St.  Botolph's  tower,  a  noble  landmark  yet, 
was  once  as  important  a  beacon  to  landsmen  as 
to  sailors.  For  many  a  long  year  after  the 
Normans  had  conquered  the  Saxon  land  the 
native  islanders  stood  out  in  this  district,  often 
going  forth  to  meet  the  foe  on  stilts,  so  that, 
having  delivered  their  assault,  they  could  re- 
treat in  safety  into  the  fastnesses  of  their  reed- 
fields,  meres,  and  marshes.1  The  aspect  of  the 
country  to-day  is  very  much  like  the  Dutch 

xThe  Isle  of  Ely,  defended  by  Hereward,  son  of  Leofric,  Lord  of 
Bourne,  was  not  the  only  portion  of  the  Fens  which  opposed  the  army 
of  the  Conqueror.  The  district  about  Boston,  being  "very  strong  by 
abundance  of  water,"  furnished  bold  men  —  the  Hollands,  the  Wells, 
and  the  Kymes  —  who  resisted  the  invaders,  and,  on  the  testimony  of 
George  Holland,  given  in  1563,  "kept  out  the  Conqueror  by  force." 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 

lands  of  the  Anglo-Dutch  pioneers  of  Massa- 
chusetts. It  is  a  little  world  of  dykes  and  sluices, 
of  meads  and  rivers,  a  vast  flat,  dotted  here 
and  there  with  ancient  homesteads  and  pic- 
turesque market  towns. 

Charles  Kingsley  knew  and  loved  his  Lin- 
colnshire well.  Although  Devonshire  born,  he 
passed  part  of  his  youth  in  the  Fens,  and  was 
familiar  with  the  south  of  the  county  from  The 
Wash  "by  Botulfston  Deeps"  to  Spalding  town, 
and  Crowland  and  Bourne,  and  with  the  border- 
ing country  around  Peterborough  (old  Mede- 
hampstead)  and  the  Isle  of  Ely;  and  we  find 
his  knowledge,  historical  and  geographical,  fully 
displayed  in  his  novel  of  the  days  of  the  Con- 
queror, "Hereward  the  Wake,  Last  of  the  Eng- 
lish." This  masterly  work,  the  last  of  Kingsley 's 
romances,  portrays  as  does  no  other  the  wild 
and  lawless  life  of  the  wide  untamed  fens,  the 
Land  of  the  Girvii.  It  brings  us  into  close  per- 
sonal touch  with  the  famous  Lady  Godiva,  whose 
memory  is  immortalised  in  connection  with 
Coventry,  where  her  bones  rest  in  her  minster- 
church  beside  those  of  her  husband,  Leofric, 
Lord  of  Bourne  and  Earl  of  Mercia.  The 
tragedy  of  their  heroic  son,  Hereward,  and  his 
once-beloved  Torfrida  lies  buried  with  them 
under  the  green  turf  eastward  of  the  ruined  nave 
of  Crowland  Abbey,  where  once  the  high  altar 
stood.  The  name  of  Algar,  first-born  of  Leofric 
and  Lady  Godiva,  is  perpetuated  in  Algarkirk 
near  Boston ;  his  son,  Edwin,  dwelt  in  the  neigh- 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

bouring  hamlet  of  Kirton,  and  Morcar,  his 
second-born,  is  called  to  mind  by  the  Morkery 
Woods,  named  after  him,  near  Stamford.  The 
Wakes  of  Bourne  were  descendants  of  the  hap- 
less Hereward,  and  the  graves  of  departed  Wakes 
may  be  found  among  the  tombstones  in  Boston 
churchyard.  A  Jacob  Wake  was  master  of  the 
Grammar  School  —  then  the  "old  school  house" 
off  Wormgate  in  Boston  —  about  1440. 

Lord  Tennyson,  Lincolnshire's  own  Laureate 

—  whose  name   links   the  two  worlds  with  a 
poet's  known  on  one  side  of  the  Atlantic  as  inti- 
mately as    on   the  other,  that   of   Longfellow 

—  was  "native  and  to  the  manner  born";   and 
his  poetic  temperament  and  genius  absorbed  all 
that  is  beautiful  and  inspiring  in  a  vast  plain. 
One  may  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  Tennyson  in 
the  Lincolnshire  wolds  and  fens  and  fix  some 
of  his  most  striking  pictures  and  the  things  that 
have  inspired  his  sublimest  thoughts. 

Gray  old  grange,  or  lonely  field, 
Or  low  morass  and  whispering  reed, 
Or  simple  stile  from  mead  to  mead, 

Or  sheep-walk  up  the  lonely  wold. 

This  is  Lincolnshire  to  the  core;  and  so  also  is 
that  poetic  vignette  in  which  one  may  almost 
feel  the  atmosphere  round  about  the  ancient 
Boston  which  stretches  forth  friendly  hands  to 
the  Massachusetts  city: 

A  league  of  grass  washed  by  a  slow,  broad  stream, 
That  stirred  with  languid  pulses  of  the  oar, 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

INTERIOR  OF  THE  COTTON  CHAPEL,  ST.  BOTOLPH'S,  BOSTON, 
ENGLAND 


Photograph  by  Hackford,  Boston 

REREDOS  PLACED  IN  THE  COTTON  CHAPEL  IN  1907 


^VJr  t— '  ^-^--  ^tw*—-^ 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    185 

Waves  all  its  lazy  lilies,  and  creeps  on, 
Barge-laden  to  three  arches  of  a  bridge 
Crowned  with  the  minster  towers. 

It  is  in  the  direction  of  Tennyson's  moods 
that  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  exhibits  his  best 
work.  He  found  inspiration  in  the  repose  of 
Salem  as  Tennyson  did  at  Somersby  in  Lincoln- 
shire, and  in  his  quiet  retreat  away  from  the 
bustle  and  excitement  of  city  life.  To  many 
the  story  of  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  is  as  real  as 
that  of  the  "Boston  Massacre,"  or  the  story  of 
the  "Boston  Tea-Party,"  and  far  more  familiar 
than  the  adventures  and  quarrels  of  Winthrop 
and  Dudley.  Hester  Prynne  and  Dimmesdale 
will  probably  outlive  the  pioneer;  they  are  better 
known  everywhere. 

The  kinship  of  the  two  Bostons  has  in  later 
years  been  marked  in  many  ways,  and  the  affec- 
tion of  her  Western  daughter  for  Mother  Boston 
has  found  frequent  and  warm  expression.  Fol- 
lowing the  restoration  in  1853  of  the  grand  old 
parish  church  on  the  banks  of  the  Witham,  the 
chapel  was  repaired  and  renovated  and  a  memo- 
rial placed  upon  its  walls  to  John  Cotton,  chiefly 
by  the  liberality  of  American  descendants  of 
Mr.  Cotton  in  the  female  line  and  others;  and 
this  southwest  adjunct  of  the  church  has  since 
been  known  as  the  Cotton  Chapel.  Here  the 
life-work  of  the  Puritan  Vicar  is  recorded, 
and  his  name  and  fame  are  perpetuated  by 
a  stately  Latin  inscription  (written  by  the 
Hon.  Edward  Everett  of  New  Boston,  a  de- 


1 86    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

scendant  of  Cotton)  which,  done  freely  into 
verse,1  reads: 

That  here  John  Cotton's  memory  may  survive 
Where  for  so  long  he  laboured  when  alive, 
In  James's  reign  —  and  Charles's,  ere  it  ceased  — 
A  grave,  skilled,  learned,  earnest  parish  priest; 
Till  from  the  strife  that  tossed  the  Church  of  God 
He  in  a  new  world  sought  a  new  abode, 
To  a  new  England  —  a  new  Boston  —  came, 
(That  took  to  honour  him  that  rev'rend  name) 
Fed  the  first  flock  of  Christ  that  gathered  there  — 
Till  death  deprived  it  of  its  Shepherd's  care  — 
There  well  resolved  all  doubts  of  minds  perplext, 
Whether  with  cares  of  this  world,  or  the  next: 
Two  centuries  five  lustra,  from  the  year 
That  saw  the  exile  leave  his  labours  here, 
His  family,  his  townsmen,  with  delight  — 
(Whom  to  the  task  their  English  kin  invite)  — 
To  the  fair  fane  he  served  so  well  of  yore, 
His  name,  in  two  worlds  honoured,  thus  restore, 
This  chapel  renovate,  this  tablet  place, 
In  this  the  year  of  man's  recovered  Grace, 
1855. 

The  corbels  supporting  the  panelled  timber 
ceiling  of  the  Chapel  are  carved  with  the  arms 
of  early  colonists  of  New  England.  Originally 
the  memorial  brass  stood  at  the  east  end  of  the 
building,  but  in  1906  the  altar  was  replaced  and 
the  tablet  removed  to  the  south  wall. 

On  through  the  years  the  sentiment  which 
animates  the  two  Bostons  has  from  time  to 
time  been  strikingly  manifested.  It  was  so  in 
1879,  when  Canon  Blenkin,  the  Vicar,  pre- 

1  By  Mr.  Richard  Newcomb,  an  old  Boston  scholar. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    187 

sented  part  of  the  original  tracery  of  an  ancient 
window,  removed  from  the  chancel  of  St. 
Botolph's,  to  Trinity  Church  of  the  New 
Boston,  where  it  was  reverently  placed  in  a 
cloister  "as  a  precious  memorial  of  the  Church 
of  our  Fathers." 

The  authorities  of  St.  Botolph's  of  that  day 
committed  the  sacrilegious  act  of  destroying 
this  grand  old  window  in  order  to  make  a 
modern  organ  chamber.  Americans  had  more 
reverence  for  the  discarded  fragments  than  the 
people  of  Old  Boston  had  entertained  for  the 
beautiful  window  itself.  Two  years  before 
the  transfer  of  these  stones  an  American  visitor, 
seeing  them  piled  in  a  corner  of  the  church, 
asked  whether  they  would  be  again  used,  and 
finding  there  was  no  likelihood  of  their  being 
placed  in  any  other  part  of  the  fabric,  "expressed 
in  the  strongest  manner,"  says  the  local  chron- 
icler, "the  delight  it  would  give  him  to  be  the 
means  of  introducing  them  to  some  church  in 
Boston,  Mass.,  especially  mentioning  the  last 
built  and  the  noblest,  the  Church  of  the  Trinity," 
of  which  the  Reverend  Phillips  Brooks  was  then 
Rector.  We  are  not  told  who  the  American 
visitor  was,  but  he  had  his  way,  for  after  some 
correspondence  the  tracery  was  despatched  to 
the  New  Boston,  and  in  December,  1879,  our 
chronicler  had  the  pleasant  duty  of  recording 
"another  of  those  interchanges  of  courtesy  and 
kindly  feeling  between  Boston  in  England  and 
Boston  in  America  which  have  'of  late  years 


1 88    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


not  unfrequently  occurred  and  have  tended  so 
much  to  maintain  a  spirit  of  affectionate  rela- 
tionship between  the  mother  town  and  the 
daughter  city."  St.  Botolph's  had  been  noti- 
fied of  the  safe  reception  of  the  stonework,  and 
its  careful  and  permanent  incorporation  into  a 
conspicuous  part  of  the  corridor  of  Trinity 
Church,  with  the  addition  of  a  brass  plate  setting 
forth  its  history  and  the  circumstances  under 
which  it  came  into  its  present  position.  The 
Rector,  churchwardens,  and  vestry  of  Trinity 
spoke  of  "the  great  value  which  attaches  in 
New  England  to  anything  associated  with  the 
name  of  John  Cotton,"  and  added  "For  our- 
selves and  for  the  church  which  we  represent  we 
acknowledge  a  peculiar  gratification  in  affixing 
to  our  new  walls  so  welcome  a  reminder  of  our 
mother  country  and  of  our  Mother  Church,  for 
whose  prosperity  and  welfare  we  shall  ever  pray." 
The  Rector  himself  wrote,  saying,  "The  gift  has 
attracted  the  interest  not  only  of  our  own  parish- 
ioners, but  of  all  our  citizens.  So  far  as  I  know,  it 
is  the  only  relic  of  the  Lincolnshire  Boston  which 
exists  in  its  Massachusetts  namesake." 

In  the  following  year,  1880,  cordial  greetings 
passed  from  East  to  West  at  the  two  hundred 
and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  First  Church  in 
Boston,  Mass.  A  pleasing  incident  marks  the 
memories  of  that  year.  Dr.  Rufus  Ellis,  then 
minister  of  the  First  Church,  was  in  October 
returning  from  a  European  tour  with  his  wife 
and  daughters  when  he  called  at  the  Lincoln- 


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THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    189 

shire  Boston,  and  there  received  official  wel- 
come. Vicar  Blenkin  and  his  clergy,  the  Mayor 
of  that  day  (Mr.  Thorns),  the  heads  of  the 
Unitarian  community,  and  others  vied  in  doing 
the  visitors  honour.  They  were  hospitably  en- 
tertained. They  duly  worshipped  at  the  town's 
pilgrim  shrines,  "our  grand  old  parish  church 
of  course,  as  is  usual  with  all  real  Americans, 
attracting  most  attention,"  reads  the  chronicle 
of  the  visit,  "and  to  its  beauties  and  treasures  a 
good  deal  of  time  was  devoted." 

Transcripts  of  various  documents,  including 
the  marriage  register  of  John  Cotton,  were  made 
for  the  strangers.  By  the  Lecturer  of  St. 
Botolph's  much  valuable  information  was  given 
respecting  the  church  and  its  history,  "and  care- 
fully noted  for  future  reference  in  the  New 
World."  Then  Mr.  Hackford,  the  clerk,  an 
authority  on  such  matters,  had  much  to  com- 
municate, "not  only  of  historical  lore,  but 
descriptions  of  the  more  famous  features  of  the 
church."  Records  preserved  in  the  Library 
over  the  south  porch  were  next  attentively  ex- 
amined, special  notice  being  taken  of  the  bap- 
tismal and  other  registers  of  the  time  of  Cotton, 
to  which  the  autograph  of  the  exiled  Vicar  is 
attached.  Even  the  services  of  the  church 
organist,  in  his  new-found  nook  in  the  demol- 
ished chancel  window  space,  were  called  into 
requisition;  and  the  music  lost  nothing  of  its 
wonted  delight  from  the  intruding  position  of 
the  instrument. 


190    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

"Dr.  Ellis  had  been  asked  to  obtain  if  pos- 
sible something  of  interest  from  Old  Boston  ere 
he  returned  to  the  United  States;  so  Mr.  Hack- 
ford  presented  to  him  a  small  old  carved  oak 
boss,  formerly  an  ornament  of  the  original 
roof,  which  was  removed  in  the  year  1662." 
The  Unitarian  congregation,  through  their 
minister,  asked  his  acceptance  of  an  engraving 
of  St.  Botolph's  Church,  and  photographic  and 
literary  souvenirs.  Finally  a  large  company 
assembled  to  bid  the  travellers  farewell;  and 
they  doubtless  carried  with  them  across  the  At- 
lantic the  happiest  of  memories  of  their  visit  to 
Old  Boston.  Dr.  Ellis  indeed  afterwards  wrote 
saying  how  deeply  interested  his  congregation 
had  been  in  his  account  of  the  visit,  and  stating 
that  the  gifts  handed  to  him  would  be  carefully 
preserved  in  accordance  with  a  vote  of  his 
church. 

There  was  a  strong  revival  of  this  good  feeling 
in  1883  during  the  mayoralty  of  Mr.  William 
Bedford,  one  of  the  most  attached  friends  of  the 
American  Boston  in  later  times.  Mr.  Bedford 
had  a  long  and  interesting  correspondence  with 
the  Bostonian  Society,  and  entertained  from 
time  to  time  leading  Bostonians  who  visited  the 
mother  country,  and  his  portrait,  sent  out  with 
other  tokens  of  goodwill  in  those  days,  still 
hangs  upon  the  Old  State  House  walls. 

Eight  and  twenty  years  after  these  events,  in 
the  spring  of  1911,  the  author  met  this  genial 
Old  Bostonian  at  Alan  House,  his  beautiful 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    191 

home,  and  chatted  with  him  on  the  subject  of 
his  relations,  while  Mayor,  with  the  American 
Boston.  He  said  he  had  always  looked  back 
upon  that  intercourse  as  the  pleasantest  feature 
of  his  mayoralty.  "  I  recall  it  with  the  greatest 
pleasure,"  he  declared,  beaming  with  the  recol- 
lection; "it  gave  me  more  delight  than  anything 
else  I  know  of  at  that  time."  Although  over 
eighty,  Mr.  Bedford  was  hearty,  if  not  active 
still,  and  as  mentally  alert  as  ever,  and  his 
reminiscences  of  New  Boston  people  were  most 
entertaining.  "An  old  age  serene  and  bright" 
was  the  happy  lot  of  this  veteran  public  servant 
—  he  had  only  just  yielded  up  his  place  as  Alder- 
man in  the  Boston  Corporation  —  who,  having 
played  a  manly  and  upright  part  in  shaping  his 
town's  affairs  (and  at  the  same  time  amassed  a 
private  fortune  by  commercial  enterprise  and 
integrity),  was  now,  at  the  end  of  his  useful 
career,  enjoying  a  well-earned  repose,  still,  how- 
ever, in  touch  and  sympathy  with  the  concerns 
of  life  and  full  of  love  for  Boston's  namesake 
across  the  Atlantic,  which,  had  he  lived  three 
hundred  years  ago,  he  would  probably  have  had 
a  hand  in  shaping  too,  so  like  was  he  in  spirit  to 
the  men  who  did  it. 

The  association  was  revived  in  August,  1895, 
when  Old  Boston  received  an  official  visit  from 
the  late  Mr.  Bayard,  the  first  Ambassador  to 
Great  Britain  from  the  United  States,  who  dis- 
tributed the  year's  prizes  at  the  venerable 
Grammar  School  and  attended  a  banquet  given 


i92    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

in  his  honour  by  the  Mayor  and  Corporation, 
who  presented  him  with  an  address.  The  occa- 
sion was  memorable  and  also  significant.  One 
of  the  most  distinguished  Americans  of  his  day 
—  or  of  modern  times  —  the  Hon.  T.  F.  Bayard, 
could  trace  his  lineage  back  to  the  same  family 
as  that  of  the  "ideal  of  chivalry,"  the  "Chevalier 
sans  peur  et  sans  reproche."  There  was  some- 
thing peculiarly  appropriate  about  the  visit. 
For  his  Huguenot  ancestors  left  their  homes  to 
settle  in  America  for  the  same  reason  as  the 
founders  of  New  England  —  freedom  of  thought 
and  of  worship;  and  as  Washington's  repre- 
sentative to  London  he  typified  to  Old  Boston 
the  greatness  and  the  power  of  which  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Bay  Colony  was  the  beginning.  His 
presence,  moreover,  and  the  testimonies  which 
accompanied  it,  stamped  the  reality  of  the  asso- 
ciation and  served  to  knit  closer  the  ties  of 
kinship  between  East  and  West. 

Very  happily,  and  in  language  which  deserves 
to  be  remembered,  Mr.  Bayard  voiced  the  feel- 
ing of  tender  regard  for  Old  Boston.  "This 
Boston  —  this  Boston  of  old  England — is  the 
mother  and  the  namegiver  of  a  younger  and  a 
stronger  Boston  far  away  across  the  sea.  And 
yet  the  younger  and  the  stronger  Boston,  the 
city  that  holds  perhaps  one  half-million  of  in- 
habitants, owes  so  much,  how  much  cannot  be 
fully  stated  or  measured,  to  the  little  town  of 
twenty  thousand  people  that  preserves  its  exist- 
ence and  holds  its  own  on  this  side  of  the  At- 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


lantic.  If,  looking  round  these  impressive  struc- 
tures, these  buildings  that  challenge  the  respect 
of  those  who  survey  them,  you  are  tempted  to 
exclaim  0  mater  pulcrior  filia,  I  think  if  you 
look  across  the  ocean  and  see  the  fresh,  strong, 
vigorous,  picturesque  city  that  bears  the  name 
of  Boston  there,  you  would  exclaim  0  mater 
pulcbra  filia  pulcrior.  But  between  the  Old 
Boston  and  the  New  Boston  there  has  run  a 
current  of  feeling,  not  noisy,  not  violent,  not 
sensational,  but  quiet  and  strong  and  true.  The 
Old  Boston  and  the  New  Boston  have  both  been 
nourished  upon  the  same  diet  x>f  religion,  of  morals, 
and  of  literature.  The  Bible  that  your  fore- 
fathers read,  and  that  you  read,  is  the  same  Bible 
that  is  read,  and  always  was  read,  in  the  New 
Boston  of  America.  The  ingrained  love  of  per- 
sonal liberty  is  just  the  same  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic  as  it  was  and  is,  and  pray  God 
always  may  be,  respected  and  cherished  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic." 

We  live,  he  said,  under  different  governments, 
we  pursue  the  same  results  by  possibly  different 
methods  of  administration,  but  the  principles  of 
truth,  of  honour,  of  duty  are  the  same  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  The  school  in  which  they 
were  met  he  described  as  one  of  the  nurseries 
of  thought,  of  feeling,  of  national  sentiment,  all 
guided  by  the  paths  of  education  into  higher 
and  greater  usefulness. 

Mr.  Bayard  was  asked  by  the  Borough 
Member  to  accept  a  copy  of  the  "History  of 


194    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

Boston,"  and  on  receiving  it  he  observed  with 
pleasure  that  among  the  books  he  had  just  dis- 
tributed were  many  American  works  —  books 
by  Holmes,  Emerson,  and  Prescott,  men  who 
had  carried  forward  into  the  New  World  the 
honour  and  the  reputation  of  the  Old.  And  he 
reminded  them  of  the  verse  in  which  Emerson, 
speaking  of  the  New  Boston,  says : 

The  rocky  nook  from  headlands  three 

Looks  eastward  to  the  farms, 
And  twice  each  day  the  loving  sea 

Takes  Boston  in  its  arms. 

"Now  the  sea  does  not  take  Boston  in  its  arms 
here  in  England,"  added  the  Ambassador,  "but 
you  have  given  me  a  Boston  that  I  can  take  to  my 
arms.  I  do  take  it  to  my  arms,  and  I  assure  you 
that  I  take  it  to  my  heart."  A  touching  allusion 
to  a  valued  gift  that  went  to  the  hearts  of  all  who 
heard  it.  The  address  presented  to  him  at  the 
town's  banquet  was  aptly  and  warmly  worded 
and  as  feelingly  acknowledged  by  Mr.  Bayard. 

It  was,  by  the  way,  at  this  banquet  that  Mr. 
Bayard  innocently  brought  upon  his  diplomatic 
head  the  resentful  wrath  of  a  section  of  American 
politicians.  A  paragraph  published  in  a  leading 
London  newspaper  stated  with  brutal  brevity 
that  the  Ambassador,  in  responding  to  the  toast 
of  President  Cleveland's  health,  declared  that 
the  Americans  were  a  violent  people.  This 
startling  indictment  was  promptly  cabled  to 
America,  where  it  caused  considerable  commo- 
tion. The  question  came  before  the  Senate  at 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    195 

Washington,  the  Minister  was  fiercely  assailed, 
and  his  resignation  was  demanded.  He  officially 
explained  his  words,  or  rather  the  absence  of 
them  in  the  offending  paragraph,  and  the  excite- 
ment eventually  subsided.  What  Mr.  Bayard 
really  said  was  that  the  office  of  President  was 
one  of  great  responsibility  and  anxiety  and  no 
"bed  of  roses";  for,  observed  the  speaker,  "he 
stands  in  the  midst  of  a  strong,  self-confident, 
and  oftentimes  violent  people  —  men  who  seek 
to  have  their  own  way,  and  men  who  seek  fre- 
quently to  have  that  way  obstructed,  and  I  tell  you 
plainly  that  it  takes  a  real  man  to  govern  the 
people  of  the  United  States."  It  certainly  does. 
Less  than  a  year  after  Mr.  Bayard's  visit  — 
in  the  June  of  1896  —  a  party  of  American 
Congregationalists  landed  at  Plymouth  and 
made  their  way  to  the  Lincolnshire  town.  Led 
by  the  Reverend  Dr.  Dunning  of  Boston,  Mass., 
they  numbered  nearly  fifty,  including  represent- 
atives of  the  National  Council  of  American 
Congregational  Churches.  First  they  went  to 
Exeter,  then  to  another  cathedral  city,  Wells, 
and  so  on  to  Glastonbury,  rich  in  ecclesiastical 
lore;  Salisbury  Cathedral  attracted  them;  so  did 
grand  old  Winchester;  Oxford,  Bedford,  London, 
Canterbury,  Cambridge,  Ely  saw  the  pilgrim 
band.  Boston  warmly  welcomed  them.  At  an 
official  luncheon  they  were  met  —  in  that  same 
hotel  which  Hawthorne  anathematised  forty 
years  before,  but  now  the  Peacock  and  Royal, 
with  a  will  to  sustain  its  name  —  by  the  Mayor 


196    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


and  the  Town  Clerk,  the  Vicar  and  local  leaders 
of  Nonconformity. 

The  Vicar,  Canon  Stephenson  —  successor  of 
Canon  Blenkin,  equally  "a  scholar  and  a  Chris- 
tian, and  fit  to  be  a  bishop"  —  spoke  for  the 
Established  Church,  and  what  he  said  did  him 
honour.  It  was  worthy  of  John  Cotton's  suc- 
cessor in  the  pulpit  of  Boston.  "We  all  wel- 
come to  old  Boston  this  distinguished  company 
as  representing  a  nation  that  we  feel  is  one  with 
us.  I  can  never  look  upon  the  Americans  in 
any  way  as  strangers;  I  feel  that  they  are 
brethren."  He  told  of  his  own  stay  in  the 
American  Boston  —  "the  illustrious  daughter  of 
this  old  mother,  who  yet  is  in  a  prosperous 
state"  —  where  his  friendly  guide  was  Phillips 
Brooks,  who  once  had  preached  in  Old  Boston 
Church.  "I  have  special  pleasure  in  being 
present  to-day,  not  merely  on  the  grounds  of 
our  common  race,  common  blood,  and  common 
language,  but  also  I  feel  that  you  represent  a 
body  who  do  a  great  part  in  leading  the  religious 
convictions  and  the  religious  education  and 
training  of  America,  and  that  you  give  your- 
selves heartily  to  the  principle  of  doing  all  you 
can  to  extend  and  exemplify  the  fact  that  it  is 
righteousness  alone  that  exalteth  a  nation.1  I 

1This  is  true  enough.  In  spite  of  "modern"  notions,  much  of  the 
old  Puritan  leaven  remains  in  the  great  Republic.  In  "The  Scarlet 
Letter"  Hawthorne  has  given  us  a  wonderful  picture  of  the  hard,  grim, 
graceless,  but  heroic  life  of  the  early  settlers  in  New  England.  From 
these  dour  old  Puritans  the  cosmopolitan  America  of  to-day  inherits 
its  finest  moral  qualities. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    197 

am  a  devoted,  and  I  hope  a  loyal  member  of  the 
Church  of  England,  but  the  strength  of  my  own 
religious  convictions  leads  me  heartily  to  respect 
the  religious  convictions  of  other  people.  We 
have  learnt  not  a  little  since  the  old  days  in  the 
matter  of  religious  toleration.  Since  the  Puritan 
Fathers  left  these  shores  to  find  an  asylum  over 
there  in  America  things  have  altered  much. 
Toleration  was  not  known  by  any  party  then; 
it  is  entirely  a  new  thing.  But  however  much 
we  differ  as  to  religious  tenets  from  the  Puritan 
Fathers  and  the  Pilgrims,  I  venture  to  say  that 
we  have  still  a  great  deal  to  learn  from  them. 
We  may  have  something  to  teach  our  fore- 
fathers —  at  least  we  think  so ;  but  there  is  a 
great  deal  we  may  learn  from  the  old  Puritans: 
the  supremacy  of  the  conscience  at  any  sacrifice, 
earnest  zeal  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  purity 
of  His  Church,  and  a  strong,  real  hold  of  the 
essential  verities  of  the  Christian  faith.  I  be- 
lieve we  have  a  great  deal  to  learn  from  them, 
and  I  think  we  are  learning  from  them."  The 
lesson  of  their  lives  —  of  their  failures  and  mis- 
takes, as  well  as  their  reality  and  sacrifice  —  is 
indeed  worth  heeding  still. 

Phillips  Brooks,  when  he  spoke  at  the  two 
hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  First 
Church  in  New  Boston,  carried  the  argument  a 
step  further.  Rector  of  Trinity  and  Bishop  of 
Massachusetts,  he  was  prouder  still  of  his  descent 
from  John  Cotton,  his  very  great-grandfather. 
"I  thank  him  as  a  Church  of  England  man,' 


198    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

said  he,  "as  a  man  loving  the  Episcopal  Church 
with  all  my  heart,  I  thank  him  for  being  a 
Puritan.  The  Church  of  England  has  no  men 
to  thank  to-day  more  devoutly.  She  has  no 
men'  to  whom  she  ought  to  be  more  grateful 
to-day  than  to  the  Puritans  who  told  her  in 
the  seventeenth  century  how  degraded  her  life 
was  becoming."  The  tribute  was  as  sincere 
as  it  was  well  deserved,  and  it  will  be  widely 
endorsed. 

The  cordiality  of  their  reception  was  acknowl- 
edged on  behalf  of  these  pilgrims  by  Dr.  Dunning. 
"Old  Boston  is  our  home,"  said  he,  "and  we 
feel  that  we  have  come  back  to  the  land  to 
which  we  belong.  It  was  a  Vicar  of  Old  Boston 
that  practically  founded  the  city  of  New  Boston. 
I  suppose  we  may  accept  the  opinion  that  the 
successors  of  John  Cotton  have  preached  as  well 
as  he  did,  for  we  have  abundant  testimony  that 
they  do."  Evidence  of  which  was  present  be- 
fore them  in  the  wise  Christian  utterances  of 
the  Vicar  of  St.  Botolph's. 

The  sentiments  expressed  by  Dr.  Dunning 
were  re-echoed  by  the  Hon.  Jonathan  A.  Lane, 
who,  as  chairman  of  the  Merchants'  Municipal 
Committee  and  a  member  of  "Mayor  Quincy's 
cabinet,"  claimed  to  fairly  represent  the  city 
of  Boston,  "that  lusty  daughter  of  yours,  you 
being  the  mother  of  all  the  Bostons,  just  as 
Plymouth  is  the  mother  of  all  the  Plymouths; 
your  child  has  grown  to  half-a-million  inhabi- 
tants, and  is  about  the  fifth  city  of  our  Union.5 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    199 

Speaking  of  the  heartiness  of  their  welcome 
everywhere,  "We  have  a  genuine  love  for  the 
people  of  England,"  declared  Mr.  Lane,  "and 
we  hope  that  the  good  feeling  created  by  this 
pilgrimage  will  be  permanent  in  its  value.  I 
think  we  are  not  so  inconsequential  but  we  may 
be  able  to  exert  some  wholesome  influence  be- 
tween mother  and  child,  between  the  Old  World 
and  the  New.  The  more  we  see  of  you  in  these 
our  peregrinations,  the  more  I  believe  that  we 
are  one."  He  concluded  with  the  words:  "I 
have  to  thank,  on  behalf  of  the  New  Boston,  our 
mother,  the  old  lady,  whom  to-day  we  most 
heartily  embrace";  a  robust,  filial  figure  of 
speech  which  had  the  warmth  of  true  affection 
behind  it. 

The  visitors  were  shown  over  the  famous  parish 
church,  where  the  Cotton  Chapel  had  a  special 
interest  for  them;  its  commemorative  character 
and  past  associations  were  explained  by  the 
Vicar.  Then  an  impressive  incident  occurred. 
Assembled  in  the  lofty  chancel  of  the  ancient 
fane,  these  representative  New  Bostonians,  de- 
scendants, many  of  them,  of  the  men  who  suffered 
hereabouts  for  their  faith  and  testimony  in  the 
dark  days  of  old,  united  in  singing  Watts*  soul- 
stirring  hymn,  grandly  worded  and  wedded  to  ma- 
jestic music,  "O  God  our  help  in  ages  past,"  the 
swelling  strains  of  which  filled  with  praise  and 
thanksgiving  the  sanctuary  of  their  forefathers. 

Next  the  historic  Guildhall,  with  its  quaint 
chambers  and  curious  kitchens  and  Pilgrim 


•It  I 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


Father  cells,  was  inspected;  and,  having  looked 
over  the  Grammar  School,  time-worn  and  tena- 
cious of  tradition,  built  forty-five  years  before 
Cotton  came  to  Boston,  the  travellers  bade  fare- 
well to  a  town  stored  with  memories  especially 
dear  to  them,  and  went  on  their  pilgrim  way. 

The  year  following  —  the  June  of  1897  —  saw 
in  Old  Boston  Dr.  Lawrence,  Bishop  of  Massa- 
chusetts, of  which  diocese  New  Boston  is  the 
centre;  and  the  eloquent  and  touching  language 
in  which  he  recalled  the  relationship  was  a  fresh 
reminder  of  the  ties  uniting  the  two  Bostons. 
What  the  bishop's  thoughts  were  on  his  entering 
John  Cotton's  pulpit  may  be  judged  by  what 
fell  from  his  own  lips: 

"You  little  realise  what  it  is  for  one  born  in 
Boston  in  the  United  States,  a  citizen  of  Boston, 
the  Bishop  not  only  of  Boston,  but  of  the  State 
of  which  Boston  is  the  capital  —  you  little 
realise,  I  say,  with  what  deep  emotion  he  comes 
here  and  looks  in  the  faces  of  you  who  are  citi- 
zens of  old  Boston,  and  recalls  to  mind  what  the 
newer  Boston  owes  to  you,  with  what  sympathy 
it  turns  towards  you,  and  with  what  sincerity  it 
tells  you  that  we  are  brethren  —  brethren  not 
only  in  Christ  and  in  the  Church,  but  brethren 
in  race,  in  blood,  in  free  institutions  —  brethren 
as  sons  of  England."  Surely  a  noble  sentiment, 
and  one  as  earnestly  reciprocated. 

Preaching  from  the  text  Joel  ii.  28,  "Your 
old  men  shall  dream  dreams,  your  young  men 
shall  see  visions,"  Dr.  Lawrence  entered  feelingly 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    201 

into  the  story  of  the  Puritan  exodus  from  the 
mother  town  and  the  splendid  fulfilment  of  the 
dreams  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 

Twenty  years  almost  before  Dr.  Lawrence 
came,  the  pulpit  of  St.  Botolph's  was  occupied 
by  his  predecessor,  Phillips  Brooks,  "the  great 
American  citizen  and  prophet,  whose  personality 
impressed  his  generation."  About  this  time 
Phillips  Brooks  preached  also  before  Queen  Vic- 
toria, and,  on  the  same  day,  his  brother,  John 
Cotton  Brooks,  was  at  Boston,  where  he  again 
filled  St.  Botolph's  pulpit  in  the  fall  of  1906. 
Soon  after  this  second  visit  to  Old  Boston  John 
Cotton  Brooks  died  in  Paris.  Before  his  second 
Boston  sermon  an  important  proposal  had  be- 
come known,  one  in  which  both  Bostons  were 
supremely  interested.  During  1905  the  diocese 
of  Massachusetts  came  into  possession  of  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  as  the  nucleus  of  a 
fund  for  a  Cathedral  to  be  erected  in  Boston,  the 
see  city;  and  the  suggestion  was  made  that  it 
would  be  a  graceful  and  fitting  thing  to  make  the 
Cathedral  building  a  reproduction  of  the  glorious 
parish  church  of  Old  Boston,  "where  Cotton 
served  so  long  and  at  whose  altars  so  many  of 
the  colonists  to  America  had  worshipped."  The 
question  arose  as  to  whether  St.  Botolph's 
would  make  a  good  model  for  a  Cathedral,  and 
to  study  this  point  the  Rev.  George  Wolfe  Shinn, 
Rector  of  Grace  Church,  Newton,  Mass.,  was 
sent  over  to  the  Lincolnshire  Boston  in  the 
autumn  of  1905.  He  there  inspected  the  plan 


202  THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

of  the  grand  old  fabric,  which  appeared  gen- 
erally to  be  suited  for  the  purpose  in  view. 
The  necessary  steps  were  afterwards  taken  to 
give  effect  to  the  proposal.  It  was  felt  that, 
while  the  special  needs  of  the  diocese  should  be 
provided  for,  all  the  essential  features  of  St. 
Botolph's  should  be  incorporated  in  the  new 
building.  The  hope  on  both  sides  of  the  At- 
lantic was  that  this  praiseworthy  project  might 
take  material  shape,  and,  as  an  enduring  monu- 
ment, crown  and  consolidate  for  all  time  the 
union  of  East  and  West,  of  which  it  should  stand 
as  the  symbol  and  the  pledge;  continuing  within 
its  broadening  influence  the  life  and  work  in- 
augurated by  the  Christian  zeal  of  the  Puritan 
founders;  unfolding  in  its  story  in  stone  and 
reproductive  beauty  of  architectural  design  the 
vista  of  a  grand  past  to  future  generations. 
\  Americans  were  again  present  in  Old  Boston  — 
they  are  seldom  altogether  absent  in  the  tourist 
season  —  at  the  Sexcentenary  Celebration  of  the 
founding  of  the  church  in  June,  1909.  The  Mas- 
sachusetts capital  was  not  officially  represented 
at  the  festival,  which  was  of  a  general  character 
in  regard  to  the  church's  history  and  took  no 
special  cognisance  of  the  most  important  period 
of  that  history,  the  first  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  therefore  had  no  particular  attrac- 
tion for  transatlantic  visitors.  Letters  of  invi- 
tation were  sent  out  by  the  Chief  Magistrate  to 
the  Mayor  of  the  New  Boston,  by  the  Town 
Clerk  to  the  American  Ambassador,  and  by  the 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


Vicar  to  the  Bishop  of  Massachusetts ;  but  these 
invitations,  no  doubt  for  the  reason  stated,  met 
with  no  response.  As  already  seen,  however, 
Americans  unofficially  attended  the  celebration, 
in  the  course  of  which  America  and  the  Boston 
connection  were  by  no  means  overlooked,  either 
at  the  civic  assembly  or  in  the  pulpit  of  the 
church.  At  the  former  function  Earl  Brown- 
low,  Lord  Lieutenant  of  the  County,  spoke  of 
the  intimate  connection  referred  to,  and,  while 
regretting  the  absence  of  accredited  representa- 
tives, rejoiced  at  the  presence  of  visiting  Ameri- 
cans, because,  said  he,  they  "knew  perfectly 
well  that  the  great  deeds  of  their  forefathers, 
whether  in  science  or  literature,  or  in  architec- 
ture, or  deeds  of  war  either  on  land  or  sea,  be- 
longed equally  to  America  as  to  England.  They 
all  felt,  both  in  England  and  in  America,  that 
*  blood  was  thicker  than  water." 

The  Sheriff  of  Lincoln  brought  the  association 
nearer  home  when  he  said  "they  could  not  look 
back  without  appreciating  fully  the  fact  that 
the  forefathers  of  the  Boston  people  of  to-day 
left  their  homes  to  go  to  a  strange  unknown 
land.  Whether  one  sympathised  with  their  con- 
victions or  not,  one  could  not  but  applaud  the 
fact  that  they  went  forth  because  of  the  convic- 
tions that  were  in  them,  and  they  recognised 
to-day  that  tjiey  had  made  known  the  name  of 
Boston  the  wide  world  over." 

The  Town  Clerk  of  Boston  gave  the  topic  a 
practical  turn  by  observing  that  "even  to-day 


204    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

the  ancient  fame  of  their  old  town  was  reflected 
to  some  small  extent  on  them  from  their  name- 
sake across  the  Atlantic,  and  of  that  they  were 
occasionally  rather  unpleasantly  reminded  by 
receiving  their  correspondence,  badly  directed, 
via  Boston  in  America." 

It  was  left  to  the  Bishop  of  London,  fresh 
from  an  American  tour,  to  emphasise  the  con- 
nection, which  he  did  at  the  parish  church  to  a 
crowded  congregation  in  a  sermon  based  upon 
Psalm  xlv.  17,  "Instead  of  thy  fathers  thou 
shalt  have  children  whom  thou  mayest  make 
children  in  all  lands." 

"I  suppose,"  said  the  preacher,  "there  are 
no  places  more  entirely  dissimilar  than  the 
two  Bostons.  Here  lies  your  dear  old  Boston, 
among  the  quiet  Fens,  with  its  eyes  fixed  upon 
the  past.  There  lies  young  Boston,  and  I  saw 
it  last  year,  with  its  eyes  wholly  fixed  upon  the 
future."  Having  glanced  at  Boston's  past  and 
at  the  passing  over  of  the  Puritans,  "We  may 
well,"  said  the  bishop,  "take  old  and  young 
Boston  as  two  representative  types  of  the  Old 
World  and  the  New,  and  what  I  want  to  try, 
on  this  most  historic  day  for  you,  is  to  point  out, 
first  what  the  New  World  owes  to  the  Old  World, 
what  the  Old  World  in  the  second  place  owes  to 
the  New,  and  what  effect  the  hope,  and  the 
pride,  and  the  faith  of  the  child  ought  to  have 
upon  the  Old  World  and  the  Mother  Church. 

Dealing  first  with  the  question  "What  does 
the  New  World  owe  to  the  Old?"  and  speaking 


PURITAN  FATHERS    205 

from  his  own  observation  of  things  in  America, 
the  preacher  said  their  children  there,  as  they 
looked  across  the  sea,  were  thanking  them  for 
their  poets,  their  writers,  and  their  history,  for 
the  great  Christian  truths  taken  out  there,  and 
for  the  historic  ministry  and  the  gift  of  an  un- 
broken Church.  He  asked  churchmen  and  non- 
conformists how  long  they  were  going  to  quarrel 
over  such  a  thin  line  of  partition  as  really  divided 
them  to-day.  Where,  he  asked,  would  they 
now  find  the  Prelacy  which  drove  their  fore- 
fathers across  the  seas?  "How  unreal  to  be 
separated  from  the  Old  Church  for  something 
which  is  banished!  I  found  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic  none  of  the  bitterness,  none  of 
the  misunderstanding  which  divides  us  in  the 
old  country,  and  I  want  you  to  realise  how  the 
children  over  there,  with  far  more  love  for  one 
another,  far  more  understanding,  far  less  bitter- 
ness, cherish  the  great  Christian  truths  that  we 
have  passed  on  to  them." 

Turning  to  the  question  "What  has  the  Old 
World  to  thank  the  New  World  for?"  the 
bishop  said  the  children  of  the  New  World  en- 
couraged them  by  their  belief  in  their  fathers* 
faith,  and  cheered  and  inspired  them  by  their  vis- 
ions, especially  with  the  glorious  motto  they  had 
written  across  their  lives,  "The  evangelisation  of 
the  world  in  this  generation."  Further,  concluded 
the  bishop,  they  owed  to  the  New  World  also  the 
honest  lesson,  in  their  religious  and  domestic 
life,  to  hold  on  to  that  which  they  had. 


1 


206     THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 

Altogether  this  was  a  memorable  sermon  — 
the  most  remarkable  of  all  the  episcopal  preach- 
ing at  the  celebration  —  distinguished  by  its 
eloquence  and  sympathy,  its  breadth  and  liber- 
ality, and  by  its  thought  for  the  relationship  of 
the  Bostons. 


COTTON'S      SUCCESSORS     AT      SAINT 

BOTOLPH'S  —  THE  CHURCH'S  LATER 

HISTORY  —  PILGRIM  SHRINES 


XI 


COTTON'S      SUCCESSORS      AT      SAINT 

BOTOLPH'S  —  THE  CHURCH'S  LATER 

HISTORY  — PILGRIM  SHRINES 

The  glorious  pile  will  still  inspire 
With  grand  design  and  pure  desire 

As  long  as  England's  free; 
And  Bostons  sons  will  gem  the  crown 
That  towers  above  the  ancient  town 

In  grand  solemnity: 

As  members  oj  that  bero  band, 
Bold  pilgrims  to  tbe  Western  Land, 

With  sons  of  equal  worth 
Wbo  toird  tbe  bell  on  Faneuil  Hall 
Whose  iron  tongue  with  clangorous  call 

Proclaimed  a  nations  birth. 

—  FROM  THE  POEM  St .  Botolpb's l 

s  EFORE  concluding  it  will  be  interesting 
v  to  retrace  our  steps  somewhat,  and,  re- 
)  suming  the  main  lines  of  this  story,  to 
glance   at   the   records   of  successors   of  John 
Cotton  at  old  St.  Botolph's  and  the  subsequent 
history  of  his  church.     Cotton  was  followed  by 
his  friend  Anthony  Tuckney,  D.D.,  son  of  the 
Vicar  of  Kirton  and  a  fellow  of  Emmanuel  Col- 
lege,  who   had   been   Mayor's   Chaplain   since 
1629. 

How   Dr.    Tuckney   came   to   establish   the 
Library  in  Boston  Church  has  already  been  men- 


1  By  W.  S.  Royce,  Pinchbeck  Hall,  Lincolnshire,  written  for  the 
Sexcentenary  Celebration. 


210    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

tioned.  Upon  his  petition  Archbishop  Laud, 
when  holding  a  visitation  at  St.  Botolph's, 
ordered  "that  the  roome  over  the  porch  of  the 
saide  church  shall  be  repaired  and  decently 
fitted  up  to  make  a  librarye  to  the  end  that  in 
case  any  well  and  charitably  disposed  person 
shall  hereafter  bestow  any  books  to  the  use  of 
the  parish,  they  may  be  there  safely  preserved 
and  kept."  Many  books  were  so  bestowed, 
with  money  with  which  to  buy  more.  But  a 
number  of  them  disappeared  —  were  thrown  or 
taken  away  —  and  for  years  the  Library  was 
neglected.  It  is  well  kept  now,  and  contains  a 
few  rare  volumes  and  MSS.  which  well  repay 
inspection;  but  it  was  never  of  any  service  to 
the  parishioners. 

While  Tuckney  was  vicar  the  Civil  War  was 
in  progress,  and  Boston  was  filled  with  Round- 
head troops,  who  are  believed  to  have  destroyed 
the  remains  of  the  mediaeval  stained  glass  in 
the  church  noted  by  Gervase  Holies  in  1640.  A 
memorandum  in  the  parish  register  of  October, 
1643,  tne  month  of  the  Wince  by  fight,  written 
in  a  top  corner  of  the  page,  reads:  "N.B.  The 
souldiers  buried  here  this  year  belonged  to  the 
Parliament  Army.  At  this  time  the  Earl  of 
Manchester  lay  at  Boston,  and  was  joined  there 
by  Oliver  Cromwell  after  the  Defeat  of  the  Earl 
of  Newcastle's  Forces  near  Gainsborough."  And 
the  names  are  given  of  several  "souldiers"  who 
died  and  were  buried  at  Boston. 

Tuckney   held    appointments   at   Cambridge 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    211 

which  excused  his  presence  there,  and  was  not 
often  seen  in  such  an  unsafe  place  as  Boston. 
But  in  1648  the  witch-hunting  campaign  began; 
and,  sandwiched  between  charges  set  down  for 
"carrying  Allison's  wife  to  Lincoln  for  witch- 
craft" and  witnesses  to  appear  against  her  at 
the  Assizes,  and  for  "the  search"  of  Allison 
and  one  "Sarah  Sewally,  accused  for  witches," 
we  find  an  item  "for  sugar  and  wine  at  the 
visitting  of  Dr  Tuckney,"  who  had  a  hand  in 
the  wretched  business:  which  is  not  surprising 
when  an  authority  like  the  learned  Dr.  Thomas 
Browne,  in  his  "  Religio  Medici,"  then  not  long 
published,  had  declared  that  "for  my  part  I  do 
ever  believe  and  do  surely  know  that  there 
are  witches,"  and  that  "phantoms  appear  often 
and  do  frequent  cemeteries,  charnel-houses,  and 
churches."  Here  was  a  state  of  things  as  bad 
as  anything  of  the  kind  prevailing  in  New  Eng- 
land. The  Boston  Corporation  paid  a  yearly 
salary  to  a  searcher  for  witches,  and  the  mania 
was  rife  throughout  the  Eastern  Counties.1 

In  1651  Mr.  Banks  Anderson  was  engaged  by 
the  Corporation  as  preacher  at  seventy  pounds 
per  annum.  From  1632  he  had  been  minister  at 
Holbeach.  His  second  wife  was  Mary  Whiting 
of  Boston,  whom  he  married  in  1645.  Anderson 
was  a  member  of  the  Independent  or  Congre- 
gational party  in  the  Church,  and  when  in  1658 

1The  Eastern  Counties  are  to-day  the  most  superstitious  part  of 
England.  As  late  as  the  spring  of  1911  the  case  was  .published  of  a 
father  and  son  who,  to  ward  off  bewitchment,  were  said  to  have  stuck 
pins  into  live  toads  and  then  burnt  them! 


212    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

the  Protector  Cromwell  called  a  convention  or 
synod  of  the  Independent  ministers  at  the  Savoy, 
Anderson  was  one  of  the  Elders  summoned  to 
attend  and  draw  up  a  declaration  of  faith. 

In  the  accounts  of  the  Mayor  of  Boston  from 
1652  onward  there  are  frequent  entries  of  charges 
for  presents  of  sugar  and  wine,  sturgeon  and 
what  not,  sent  by  his  sympathisers  to  that  "in- 
flexible Republican,"  Sir  Henry  Vane,  now  one 
of  the  heads  of  the  Independent  party  and 
residing,  since  his  return  from  Massachusetts,  at 
Belleau  near  Alford  in  Lincolnshire. 

Pests  of  a  certain  type  abounded  in  these 
topsy-turvy  times,  and  troubled  the  authorities 
at  home  almost  as  much  as  they  did  the  New 
England  rulers.  Old  Boston's  Mayor  in  1652 
leaves  on  record  a  charge  for  money  "spent  at 
the  Peacock  when  we  went  about  the  towne 
seeking  for  vagrants  and  fanatics."  Four  years 
later  Quaker  George  Fox,  founder  of  the  Society 
of  Friends,  passed  through  the  county,  and  from 
Crowland  arrived  at  Boston,  "where  most  of 
the  chief  of  the  town,"  he  writes,  "came  to  our 
inn,  and  the  people  seemed  to  be  much  satisfied. 
But  there  was  a  raging  man  in  the  yard;  and 
Robert  Craven  was  moved  to  speak  to  him,  and 
told  him  'he  shamed  Christianity/  which  with 
some  few  other  words  so  stopt  the  man  that  he 
went  away  quiet.  And  some  were  convinced 
there  also."  One  is  tempted  to  say  that  Robert 
Craven  would  have  been  useful  in  New  England ; 
but  that  is  doubtful. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    213 

At  the  Stuart  restoration  in  1660  Tuckney 
resigned  the  Boston  living,  and,  having  given 
up  his  Cambridge  preferments,  died  in  1670. 
Anderson  lost  his  position  in  1662  and  formed 
an  independent  congregation,  and  on  his  death 
in  1668  was  buried  in  the  church,  where  the 
gravestone  of  his  daughter  may  also  be  seen  on 
the  floor  space  near  the  south  door.  Anderson 
is  thought  —  not  without  good  reason  —  to  have 
been  a  Baptist.  The  Corporation  who  employed 
him  had  in  fact  to  procure  someone  else  to  ad- 
minister the  rite  of  baptism;  and  it  was  during 
this  time  that  the  mediaeval  font  of  the  church 
was  demolished. 

The  Church  revival  of  the  later  Stuart  period 
had  little  force  in  Boston,  which  was  thoroughly 
imbued  with  the  Puritan  spirit.  In  1660  came 
Obadiah  Howe  as  Vicar;  he  was  rather  the  last 
of  the  Puritans  than  the  first  of  the  new  regime. 
The  son  of  a  Vicar  of  Tattershall,  as  curate  of 
Stickney  he  had  entertained  the  Roundhead 
leaders  when  on  their  way  from  Boston  to  the 
victorious  Winceby  fight  in  October,  1643.  He 
was  minister  at  Gedney  before  being  preferred 
to  Boston.  The  services  having  been  re- 
sumed, efforts  were  made  to  put  the  church  in 
order.  A  new  reredos  was  erected,  but  was 
taken  down  in  1724  and  sold  to  Gedney  church 
in  1740,  and  a  new  altar  and  font  were  set  up. 
A  sketch  of  this  font  is  preserved  in  the  church. 
Howe  was  a  voluminous  writer.  Dying  in 
1683,  ne  was  buried  in  the  church,  and  his  monu- 


214   THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

mental  brass  is  on  the  wall  of  the  Cotton 
Chapel. 

The  next  Vicar  was  Henry  Morland,  a  fellow 
of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  who  had  been 
lecturer  at  Boston  since  1675. 

In  1702  Edward  Kelsall  was  instituted.  He 
had  been  master  of  the  Grammar  School,  and 
took  some  interest  in  the  Library.  Kelsall  was 
an  active  man.  In  1713  he  started  the  Bluecoat 
charity  for  clothing  and  educating  poor  boys 
and  girls.  He  also  brought  back  organ  music 
to  the  services  of  the  church,  which  had  been 
without  it  since  1590.  It  had  a  reputation  for 
good  music  in  early  times,  when  Leland  writes 
of  St.  Botolph's  as  being  "for  a  parish  church 
the  best  and  fairest  of  all  Lincolnshire,  and 
served  so  with  singing,  and  that  of  cunning 
men,  as  no  parish  in  all  England."  That  was 
high  praise.  The  "cunning  men"  were  of 
course  musicians.  The  organ  is  first  mentioned 
in  a  document  of  about  1480,  more  than  a 
century  before  the  Puritans  sold  the  instrument. 
Now,  after  an  interval  of  more  than  another 
century,  it  was  restored  through  the  efforts  of 
Vicar  Kelsall,  who  procured  the  erection  in  1717 
of  an  organ  built  by  Christian  Smith,  nephew 
and  fellow-workman  of  the  celebrated  Father 
Smith,  who  came  to  England  with  the  return 
of  the  Stuart  dynasty.  This  organ  stood  on  a 
screen  between  the  chancel  and  the  nave;  in 
front  of  it  was  a  singers'  gallery,  facing  west, 
which  is  now  in  the  Roman  Church.  On  either 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    215 

side  of  the  chancel  are  still  the  doors  that  led 
to  the  rood-loft  demolished  by  order  of  the 
Corporation  in  1590,  with  the  sanction  of  the 
Vicar  of  that  day ;  above  are  the  doorways,  now 
blocked  up,  through  which  the  loft  was  entered. 
The  nave  and  aisles  were  in  Kelsall's  time  filled 
with  pews  rising  gradually  to  the  sills  of  the 
windows  from  a  central  area  in  which  the  pulpit 
and  reading-desk  stood;  the  chancel  was  only 
used  for  the  quarterly  communions. 

On  Kelsall's  death,  in  1719,  Samuel  Codding- 
ton  became  Vicar.  He  also  had  been  the  Gram- 
mar School  master.  Under  him  the  mediaeval 
vestry  on  the  south  of  the  chancel,  and  the  dis- 
used chapels  at  the  east  of  the  aisles,  were 
destroyed. 

John  Rigby,  who  succeeded  Coddington  in 
1732,  was  another  Grammar  School  master.  In 
1742  the  churchyard  was  considerably  enlarged 
by  the  gift  of  John  Parish  of  the  Ostrich  Inn 
and  adjoining  premises  on  condition  that  the 
Corporation  would  pull  down  the  old  gaol  and 
shops  adjacent  and  devote  the  site  to  the  same 
use,  which  they  did.  Other  buildings  in  this 
corner  of  the  Market-place  were  razed  by  the  Cor- 
poration a  few  years  later,  when  the  churchyard 
assumed,  if  we  include  the  railed-in  Ingram  monu- 
ment, much  the  appearance  it  presents  to-day. 

Rigby  died  in  1746,  when  John  Calthrop 
stepped  into  the  vacant  living;  he  was  also 
Vicar  of  Kirton  and  a  prebendary  of  Lincoln 
Cathedral,  Calthrop,  in  1751,  erected  a  new 


2i6   THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


vicarage  house,  the  Corporation  assisting  with 
funds.  This  second  vicarage  was  pulled  down 
in  1870  and  the  ground  upon  which  it  stood 
taken  into  the  garden  of  the  existing  residence. 
The  old  vicarage  occupied  by  John  Cotton, 
which  had  an  approach  from  Wormgate,  was 
demolished  in  1850. 

There  was  Wesleyan  preaching  at  Boston  in 
1756,  and  the  effect  of  it  was  a  revival  of  Puritan 
dissent.  The  General  Baptists  of  Boston,  one 
of  the  oldest  communions  in  the  kingdom  — 
formed  about  1649,  and  having  in  1662  and  1664 
undergone  the  ordeal  of  persecution  —  were  now 
endowed  with  some  landed  property  and  a  good 
site  for  their  church,  which  since  1739  had  been 
a  barn.  In  1781  — thirty-five  years  after  Cal- 
throp's  coming — a  great  change  was  wrought 
in  the  interior  of  Boston  Church,  when  the 
fine  old  flat  panelled  ceilings,  which  were  in 
a  bad  state,  were  replaced  by  the  present  sham 
vaults,  the  springers  of  which  conceal  the 
clumsy  props  of  the  original  nave  roof.  The 
ceilings  are  light  and  graceful,  but  decidedly 
unsuitable,  especially  in  the  clerestory,  the 
height  of  which  they  diminish  by  over  twenty 
feet.  Ecclesiologists  consistently  abuse  them, 
and  they  are  rather  a  bad  memory  to  poor 
Calthrop,  who  died  four  years  after  they  were 
put  in.  He  was  buried  at  Gosberton,  his  native 
place. 

Samuel  Partridge,  F.S.A.,  appointed  in  1785, 
held  the  rectory  of  the  south  mediety  of  Leverton 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


until  1797  and  was  also  Vicar  of  Wigtoft  and 
Quadring.  In  his  time  the  Fens  were  enclosed. 

On  Partridge's  death,  in  1817,  Bartholomew 
Goe  was  called  to  Boston.  Under  this  vicar  the 
Chapel-of-Ease,  or  St.  Aidan's  Church,  was  built, 
on  the  authority  of  a  private  Act  of  Parliament 
by  which  the  stipend  of  the  minister  was  charged 
upon  the  town.  In  1835  was  passed  the 
Municipal  Reform  Act,  under  which  the  patron- 
age of  ecclesiastical  benefices,  the  advowsons  of 
which  were  held  by  municipal  bodies,  became 
vested  in  the  bishops  of  dioceses,  though  the 
corporations  retained  the  right  to  sell  the  ad- 
vowsons. Goe  was  therefore  the  last  of  the 
eighteen  vicars  appointed  by  the  Corporation. 
That  thrifty  assembly  was  in  a  selling  humour. 
It  sold  the  advowson  of  the  Chapel-of-Ease, 
along  with  the  Corporation  plate  and  regalia  — 
a  crime  for  which  posterity  will  not  readily 
forgive  it  —  and,  after  two  vicars  had  been  col- 
lated by  bishops  of  Lincoln,  also  sold  the  advow- 
son of  the  vicarage,  for  which  Mr.  Herbert 
Ingram  paid  ten  hundred  and  fifty  pounds. 
From  the  widow  of  the  purchaser  it  passed  to 
the  Watkin  family,  and  in  1906  the  patrons 
vested  it  in  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  in  right  of 
his  see. 

On  Goe's  death  in  1838  John  Furness  Ogle 
was  made  Vicar.  The  Victorian  revival  had  now 
set  in.  As  in  Howe's  case,  Ogle  was  rather  the 
last  of  the  old  school  than  the  first  of  the  new 
era ;  but  he  could  not  altogether  resist  the  move- 


m 


218    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


ment.  The  restoration  of  the  church  was  com- 
menced in  1840,  and,  after  having  ceased  for  a 
while,  was  continued  after  his  death  in  the  early 
fifties,  when  the  large  raised  modern  font  given 
by  Mr.  Beresford  Hope  was  erected  and  the 
church  was  re-dedicated,  the  Reverend  G.  B. 
Blenkin  being  Vicar.  After  Canon  Blenkin  came 
Canon  Stephenson,  and  then  Canon  Heygate. 

We  have  seen  something  of  St.  Botolph's 
Church  in  John  Cotton's  time.  Let  us  now 
survey  its  venerable  interior  as  it  appears  to- 
day. One  of  the  sights  it  presents  is  the  splen- 
did stone  vaulting  of  the  tower,  one  hundred  and 
fifty-six  feet  from  the  ground,  probably  the 
highest  in  the  world.  This  groined  ceiling,  in- 
serted when  the  church  was  restored,  is  at  the 
level  of  the  second  story.  The  tower  itself, 
rising  two  hundred  seventy-two  and  one  half 
feet,  octagonal  crown  included,  is  the  tallest  in 
the  country.  The  width  of  the  nave,  one 
hundred  feet,  is  equalled  by  only  one  English 
cathedral.  The  full  length  of  the  church  is 
three  hundred  feet. 

There  is  a  curious  correspondence  between  its 
architectural  features  and  the  divisions  of  time. 
Thus  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  steps  to 
the  top  of  the  tower  coincide  with  the  days  in  the 
year;  and  as  many  windows  are  in  the  church 
as  there  are  weeks  in  the  year.  The  months 
are  represented  by  the  twelve  pillars,  and  the 
days  of  the  week  by  the  doors.  The  twenty- 
four  steps  to  the  Library  stand  for  the  hours  of 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 

the  day;  the  sixty  in  each  staircase  leading  to 
the  chancel  roof  equal  the  minutes  of  the  hour 
and  the  seconds  of  the  minute. 

There  are  chimes  in  the  tower  connected  with 
the  clock,  as  there  were  in  the  seventeenth  and 
succeeding  centuries.  Mention  of  the  clock 
and  chimes  is  made  in  the  local  records  as  far 
back  as  1614.  Renewed  in  1732,  the  chimes 
were  worn  out  and  ceased  to  play  a  hundred 
years  later.  In  1867  were  installed  thirty-six 
carillons  made  by  the  famous  founder  Van 
Aerschodt  of  Louvain.  These  did  not  prove 
satisfactory,  and  in  1897  they  were  recast  into 
four  larger  bells  which  now  supplement  the 
eight  ringing  bells  of  the  peal,  also  used  as  chimes, 
which  play  sweet  hymn  tunes  or  popular  national 
airs  at  intervals  during  the  daytime. 

At  the  1853  restoration  traces  of  the  earlier 
church  were  discovered  four  feet  below  the  level 
of  the  present  building;  and  one  Norman  stone 
coffin  and  the  curiously  carved  lids  of  others, 
found  among  the  old  foundations,  are  now  to 
be  seen  in  the  sepulchral  recesses  of  the  north 
and  south  aisle  walls.  Strange  to  say,  when  the 
existing  pile  was  raised  the  great  four-storied 
lantern-capped  tower,  its  chief  glory,  was  not 
begun  till  the  rest  of  the  fabric  was  completed. 
Doubtless  it  was  in  the  original  design  of  the 
architect,  but  the  building  of  it  came  last;  it 
is  indeed  considered  by  many  to  have  been  left 
unfinished  after  all.  The  oldest  portion  of  the 
church  is  the  foundation  of  the  tower,  laid  with 


I 


220   THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

much  ceremony,  but  to  little  purpose  then,  in 
1309,  excavations  having  revealed  a  gravel 
layer  on  the  clay  subsoil  five  feet  below  the 
bed  of  the  haven.  The  first  stone  of  the  pro- 
jected tower  was  put  in  position  by  Dame 
Margery  Tilney,  assisted  by  Richard  Stephen- 
son,  a  merchant  of  Boston,  and  Rector  John 
Truesdale,  each  of  whom  placed  upon  the  stone 
five  pounds  sterling.  But  from  some  cause  the 
work  did  not  proceed  much  further  for  nearly 
thirty  years.  Then  the  church  was  commenced 
and  by  degrees  completed;  and  the  chancel 
having  been  lengthened  two  bays,  the  tower  itself 
was  erected.  Probably  the  delay  in  setting  it 
up  was  occasioned  by  a  natural  fear  lest  a  proper 
foundation  should  not  be  secured  for  so  tre- 
mendous a  structure.  It  was  a  masterly  con- 
ception. Combining  in  its  composition  height, 
strength,  and  lightness,  its  outline  gradually 
diminishes  in  bulk  and  might  well  have  ter- 
minated with  the  top  parapet  and  angle  pin- 
nacles; but  above  these,  crowning  the  tower 
proper,  rises  the  lordly  lantern,  borne  up  by 
flying  buttresses  from  the  corner  pinnacles  and 
supported  by  angle  buttresses,  the  whole  cul- 
minating in  slender  pinnacles  tipped  with  gilded 


vanes. 


The  lofty  arch  under  which  we  pass  on  to  the 
floor  of  the  tower  once  contained  the  west 
window;  the  level  of  the  sill  is  shown  by  the 
place  where  the  moulding  ceases  on  the  inner 
wall.  Before  the  tower  was  built  turrets  stood 


i 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    221 

at  this  end  which  are  still  used  as  stair-turrets, 
and  the  west  door,  restored  in  1891,  is  believed 
to  have  been  shifted  to  its  present  position  from 
the  wall  enclosing  the  nave.  A  section  of 
beautifully  sculptured  stone,  displaced  at  the 
renovation  of  the  portal,  found  its  way  to  the 
American  Boston  and  now  adorns  the  base  of 
John  Cotton's  memorial  in  the  First  Church. 
This  time-worn  fragment  must  date  from  the 
earliest  construction  of  the  church,  and  unques- 
tionably, three  centuries  and  more  later,  it 
formed  a  part  of  the  main  entrance  during  all 
the  years  John  Cotton  was  Vicar  of  St.  Botolph's. 

As  the  visitor  stands  at  the  west  end  of  this 
noble  fane  —  this  pilgrim  shrine,  a  Mecca  of 
Americans  —  and  looks  about  him,  he  will  as- 
suredly find  himself  sympathising  with  the  view 
that  it  possesses  probably  the  most  magnificently 
proportioned  interior  of  any  parish  church  in 
England.  On  his  right  he  will  see  the  Cotton 
Chapel,  enclosed  since  1895  by  an  oak  screen 
which  replaced  the  older  curtains  hung  between 
the  arches.  A  little  beyond  is  the  porch,  with 
the  Library  above  it  now  thrown  open  to  the 
church  by  the  removal  from  over  the  south  door 
of  Mequignon's  copy  of  Rubens'  "Descent  from 
the  Cross,"  a  large  triptych  which  from  1724  for 
a  hundred  and  thirty  years  served  the  church  as 
an  altar-piece. 

The  height,  length,  and  spaciousness  of  this 
cathedral-like  edifice  all  impress  the  spectator, 
who,  while  realising  its  vastness,  can  imagine 


\ 


222    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

something  also  of  its  mediaeval  grandeur,  with 
its  rich  ornamentation  and  stained  glass,  before 
the  lumber  of  screens  and  furniture  vanished 
and  the  flat  panelled  ceilings  with  carvings  and 
painted  shields  made  way  for  their  eighteenth 
century  substitutes. 

But  the  church  still  presents  a  goodly  sight, 
with  its  pillars  and  arches  and  modern  coloured 
windows,  especially  that  at  the  east  end,  rear- 
ing in  proud  splendour  over  the  obtruding 
reredos,'  where  in  the  chancel  are  fifteenth 
century  stalls,  once  thickly  coated  with  paint, 
with  their  quaintly  wrought  miserere  seats, 
numbering  sixty-three,  and  surmounted  now, 
like  the  chancel  doorways,  by  canopies  copied 
from  Lincoln  Cathedral,  with  the  donors*  names 
and  arms  inscribed  above  them.  Carved  oak 
canopy  work  also  covers  the  sedilise  within  the 
altar  rails,  where  is  a  piscina,  and  the  aumbries 
have  oak  doors  and  beautiful  iron  fittings. 

Around  these  ancient  walls  are  many  me- 
morials to  bygone  Bostonians,  hatchments  and 
marbles,  tablets  and  armorial  brasses.  They 
are  plentiful  and  more  interesting  in  the  south 
aisle,  where  we  find  a  Dineley  brass  engraved 
with  a  skeleton  bearing  arms.  The  Dineleys 
(also  written  Dingley:  a  William  Dingley  was 
Mayor  in  1597),  neighbours  of  the  Earl  of 
Lincoln  at  Boston,  were  early  settlers  in  New 
England.  A  brass  placed  here  has  the  name 
and  arms  of  Nightingale  Kyme,  who,  dying  in 
1814,  was  the  last  of  his  line,  one  of  the  oldest  in 


- 


FIVE  OF  THE  MISERERE  SEATS  IN  ST.  BOTOLPH'S.  BOSTON,  ENGLAND 


/.  Queen  Anne  of  Bohemia.  —  2.  The  Argument  of  the  Rod.  —  3.   The  Cock  and  the 
Fox.  —  4-  Man  and  Monster.  —  5.  A  Hunter  taken  Unawares. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    223 


Lincolnshire.  It  was  a  Kyme  who  married  the 
widowed  Princess  Cicely,  daughter  of  Edward 
IV.,  who,  with  her  first  husband,  Viscount  Wells, 
was  a  member  of  the  Guild  of  Corpus  Christi 
at  Boston.  Another  Kyme  married  Anne  Ays- 
cough,  the  martyr.  The  Kyme  family  held 
Kyme  Tower  from  1600  till  Nightingale's  death; 
before  them  it  belonged  to  the  Rochfords,  who 
lived  there  before  the  church  was  built. 

In  one  of  the  arched  recesses  is  a  brass  to 
Robert  Townley  (d.  1588),  Comptroller  of  the 
Port,  and  Joanna  his  wife;  also  a  copper  tablet 
to  Alderman  Robert  Wilby  (d.  1791),  twice 
Mayor;  and  a  brass  to  Pishey  Thompson,  the 
local  historian,  who  for  a  time  resided  at  Wash- 
ington, but,  returning  from  America,  died  at 
home  in  1862. 

In  a  blocked  doorway  of  the  staircase  once 
leading  to  the  rood-loft  of  the  famous  Chapel 
of  Our  Lady  is  a  brass  with  arms  to  Richard 
BoIIes  (d.  1591),  grandfather  of  Sir  John  BoIIes 
of  Thorpe  Hall,  Louth,  hero  of  the  Legend  of  the 
Spanish  Lady.  The  brass  is  quaintly  inscribed 
with  a  record  of  the  BoIIes'  family  history;  con- 
cerning which  it  may  be  stated  here  that  two 
of  Sir  John's  sons,  Charles  and  John,  Royalist 
cavaliers,  were  killed  in  the  Civil  War,  one  at 
Winceby,  fighting  against  Cromwell  and  the 
Boston  men,  and  the  other  near  Winchester. 

It  is  in  respect  of  this  "Chappell  of  Our  Lady 
in  St.  Botolph's"  that  Fox  in  his  "Acts  and 
Monuments"  gives  an  amusing  account  of  how 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


Thomas  Cromwell  assisted  the  Boston  depu- 
tation in  cajoling  Pope  Julius  II.  into  renew- 
ing his  Papal  indulgences:  "And  thus  were 
the  jolly  pardons  of  the  towne  of  Boston 
obtained." 

Here  in  these  recesses,  near  the  old  sedilia 
and  statue  brackets,  all  finely  carved,  are  the 
altar  tombs  and  effigies  of  a  knight  of  St.  John 
of  Malta,  supposed  to  be  a  Dineley,  and  Dame 
Margery  Tilney,  ancestress  of  Anne  Boleyn, 
who  laid  the  first  stone  of  "Boston  steeple." 

Further  westward  in  this  aisle,  on  a  wall 
which  blocks  the  portal  of  a  former  outer  chapel, 
is  a  brass  to  one  of  Boston's  most  distinguished 
sons,  Henry  Hallam  the  historian,  whose  grand- 
parents lie  in  the  adjacent  churchyard.  Grand- 
father John  Hallam,  a  surgeon,  was  twice 
Mayor  of  Boston,  in  1741-54.  His  son  John, 
father  of  the  historian,  passed  from  Boston 
Grammar  School  to  Eton  and  King's  College, 
Cambridge,  and  became  Canon  of  Windsor  and 
Dean  of  Bristol,  and  is  buried  in  St.  George's 
Chapel,  Windsor.  The  Latin  inscription  to  the 
historian  has  thus  been  rendered  into  English 
verse1: 

To  the  memory  of  Henry  Hallam, 
Who  first  of  all  historians  of  our  land 
Laid  on  himself,  and  kept  it,  this  command  — 
Like  a  just  judge  that  leans  to  neither  side, 
To  sift  the  evidence  and  so  decide. 

1  By  Mr.  Richard  Newcomb.  The  second  line  of  the  second  verse 
is  not  represented  in  the  original,  but  Mr.  Newcomb  claims  that  other- 
wise the  paraphrase  is  fairly  close  for  a  metrical  one. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    225 

Here,  where  men  knew  of  old  her  father's  name  — 
Here,  where  'twas  honoured  ere  it  sprang  to  fame  — 
This  brass  that  name  —  at  home  to  her  as  dear 
As  great  abroad  —  his  daughter  bids  to  bear. 

Also  noteworthy  is  the  beautiful  little  ala- 
baster monument  in  the  chancel  to  the  classical 
scholar  and  literary  critic,  John  Conington, 
Corpus  Professor  of  Latin  at  Oxford  University, 
to  whose  father,  the  Reverend  Richard  Coning- 
ton, first  minister  of  the  Chapel-of-Ease,  the  fine 
lectern  in  the  church,  a  large  brass  eagle,  is  a 
memorial.  Their  ancestor,  Jacob  Conington,  was 
Mayor  of  Boston  in  an  historic  year,  1775,  which 
witnessed  the  battle  of  Bunker's  Hill  at  the  New 
Boston.  The  Coningtons  became  extinct  in 
1906  on  the  death  of  a  surviving  daughter  of 
Richard  Conington. 

Those  whose  benefactions  helped  the  poor, 
as  well  as  the  men  who  brought  honour  to  the 
town,  have  their  names  perpetuated  on  the 
walls  of  the  church.  John  Blount  and  John 
Wood,  who  left  legacies  to  the  parish,  are  com- 
memorated by  the  stone  shields  over  the  tower 
doorways.  Both  these  worthy  Bostonians  were 
twice  Mayor  towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  both  died  in  the  same  year,  1702. 
North  of  the  records  of  their  pious  gifts  is  the 
tablet  of  Bartholomew  Goe,  B.A.,  once  vicar, 
and  near  it  a  mural  marble  to  Job  Philips, 
musician  (d.  1850),  carved  at  the  foot  of  which 
is  an  open  music-book,  with  the  words  "You 
will  remember  me"  over  the  score  of  the  song. 


226    THE  ROMANTIC   STORY  OF 

The  spacious  floor  on  which  we  stand  is 
flagged  with  sepulchral  slabs.  Several  of  them 
show  the  matrices  of  brasses,  Flemish  and  Eng- 
lish, of  which  they  were  stripped  in  Puritan  — 
and  other  —  times.  Some  flat  stones  in  the 
nave  and  aisles  are  similarly  denuded.  Two  of 
the  brasses  taken  from  these  slabs,  figures  of  a 
man  and  a  woman,  worn  quite  bare,  are  now  on 
the  inner  wall  of  the  Cotton  Chapel.  Two  finer, 
though  mutilated,  specimens  of  ancient  monu- 
mental brasswork  may  be  seen  on  either  side 
of  the  church  altar.  One  of  them,  brought 
here  from  the  nave,  represents  Walter  Pescod, 
a  merchant  of  Boston  and  benefactor  of  St. 
Mary's  Guild,  who  died  in  1389;  originally 
Mistress  Pescod  formed  part  of  the  brass,  and 
most  of  the  canopy  which  surrounded  them  is 
still  in  situ.  The  other  is  the  figure  of  a  priest, 
clothed  in  surplice,  almuce,  and  cope. 

Tombstones  which  tell  their  mute  story  at 
the  west  end  of  the  building  are  all  that  is  left 
of  Mayors  and  their  kindred  and  other  local 
notabilities  long  since  gone  to  dust.  The  prac- 
tice of  burying  in  the  church  was  discontinued 
many  years  ago;  the  last  interment,  a  solitary 
revival  of  the  objectionable  custom,  was  in  1868. 

The  name  of  Hutchinson  recalls  the  early 
days  of  the  Massachusetts  Colony.  Here  may 
be  read  the  stone  of  Samuel  Hutchinson  (Mayor 
1680-95)  and  Catharine,  his  wife,  who  both 
died  in  1696.  Stephen  Hutchinson,  presumably 
their  son,  was  Mayor  in  1699.  • 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    227 


Specially  interesting  is  a  great  heavy  memo- 
rial slab,  rudely  and  curiously  carved,  to  one 
Wisselus,  "Civis  et  Mercator  Monasteriensis," 
who  died  in  1340.  This  antiquarian  relic, 
found  on  the  site  of  the  church  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan Friars  in  Boston,  was  built  into  the 
wall  of  a  house  in  Spain  Court,  at  the  back 
of  the  old  warehouses  of  the  merchants  of 
St.  Mary's  Guild  in  Spain  Lane,  whence  it  was 
rescued,  and,  as  we  are  informed  by  a  brass 
plate  let  into  the  church  pavement,  entrusted 
to  the  Vicar  and  church  wardens,  for  better 
preservation,  in  1897. 

Only  one  or  two  other  memorials  need  be 
noticed.  Over  the  inner  door  of  the  Cotton 
Chapel  is  the  brass  of  Dr.  Obadiah  Howe,  the 
last  of  the  Puritan  vicars  of  Boston  buried  in 
the  church.  He  married  Elizabeth  Olter,  a 
widow,  who,  after  his  death,  married  John 
Tooley  (d.  1686),  whose  stone  is  on  the  floor  of 
the  church,  carved  with  arms  and  having  brasses 
still  in  good  condition.  The  tombstone  of  the 
thrice-wedded  lady  is  also  there. 

Above  the  outer  door  of  the  chapel  is  a  brass 
tablet,  once  in  the  south  aisle,  engraved  with 
the  portrait  of  a  contemporary  of  Cotton, 
Thomas  La  we,  who  was  an  Alderman  of  Boston 
in  1632  and  Mayor  three  times  after  that.  He 
is  pictured  here  in  a  full-sleeved  gown,  a  large 
ruff,  and  skull  cap.  There  is  a  story  that  Lawe 
sat  in  Parliament  during  the  Protectorate  and 
opposed  and  annoyed  Oliver  Cromwell.  No 


228    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


evidence  exists  of  this,  but  he  was  probably  a 
Royalist. 

Buried  in  the  Cotton  Chapel,  where  his  stone 
lies  under  the  altar  with  its  splendid  new  reredos, 
is  John  Laughton,  founder  in  1 707  of  Laughton's 
School,  first  carried  on  here  and  afterwards  at 
the  old  Church-house  over  the  way,  for  the 
educating  of  poor  freemen's  sons.  A  stained 
glass  window  to  Laughton  was  put  in  the  chapel 
by  freemen  and  freemen's  sons  in  1858. 

Some  untoward  incidents  have  marked  the 
history  of  the  church.  In  November,  1775, 
while  John  Calthrop  was  Vicar,  it  was  broken 
into  during  the  night  and  all  the  valuable  com- 
munion plate  was  stolen.  The  thieves  got  away 
with  two  silver  flagons  and  a  silver  dish,  chased 
and  gilt,  and  a  silver  cup  and  cover,  large  vessels 
given  by  Lord  Coleraine;  two  smaller  silver 
cups,  an  ancient  silver  patine,  and  three  more 
silver  dishes.  No  trace  of  the  plate  was  ever 
discovered,  but  the  parish  replaced  it  with 
another  service  less  than  a  year  after  the 
robbery. 

In  May,  1803,  a  fire,  caused  by  careless  work- 
men, broke  out  in  the  nave  roof,  the  flames 
spread  rapidly,  and  only  the  strenuous  exertions 
of  the  townsfolk  saved  their  beloved  church  from 
destruction. 

The  building  was  often  flooded  by  high  tides 
flowing  up  the  Witham  in  former  days,  and  the 
tower  has  several  times  been  struck  by  lightning 
within  living  memory.  In  July,  1893,  a  pin- 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    229 

nacle  of  the  lantern  was  demolished.  Sunday 
night,  August  5,  1900,  brought  a  terrifying 
experience.  The  people  were  standing  at  the 
close  of  the  service,  while  the  organist  played 
the  Dead  March,  when  a  lower  pinnacle  of  the 
tower,  weighing  upwards  of  a  ton,  was  thrown 
down  by  lightning  and  crashed  through  the 
nave  roof,  shattering  the  steps  of  the  font  and 
causing  a  panic.  A  few  moments  later  the  con- 
gregation would  have  been  leaving  and  loss  of 
life  would  probably  have  resulted.  The  tower 
was  struck  a  third  time  on  the  afternoon  of 
May  13,  1908,  and  the  incident  was  again  of  an 
alarming  character.  It  was  market  day  and  the 
town  was  full  of  country  folk,  many  of  whom 
witnessed  the  damage  done  to  St.  Botolph's. 
The  stonework  was  cut  through  as  cleanly  as 
though  with  a  giant  knife,  and  down  toppled  a 
mass  of  masonry,  a  lantern  pinnacle,  before  the 
eyes  of  the  startled  spectators.  Part  of  the  dis- 
lodged stone  fell  into  the  churchyard  below  and 
buried  itself  in  the  ground  near  where  the  pin- 
nacle descended  in  1893.  But  this  time  a  good 
portion  of  the  masonry  fell  inwards,  driving 
holes  through  the  bell  chamber  roof  and  smash- 
ing to  splinters  the  heavy  beams,  one  of  which 
was  forced  out  and  came  tumbling  down  on 
the  bells,  making  them  toll  weirdly  amidst  the 
thunderstorm.  People  afterwards  ascending  the 
steeple  were  assailed  by  an  overpowering  sul- 
phurous smell  on  the  winding  staircase  leading 
to  the  belfry.  The  tower  has  since  been  pro- 


.23o    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

tected  by  the  presence  of  a  lightning  conductor, 
a  precaution  which,  incredible  as  it  may  seem, 
had  never  been  taken  before. 

The  final  words  of  this  volume  shall  be  con- 
cerning another  pilgrim  shrine,  the  Guildhall, 
after  the  Church  the  most  ancient  and  interest- 
ing building  in  Boston.  For  not  only  was  this 
historic  hall  closely  associated  with  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  and  the  men  of  Old  Boston  who  helped 
to  make  New  England  —  in  whose  day  and 
generation  it  was  already  growing  an  old  build- 
ing —  but  it  carries  us  back  to  the  period  of  the 
rich  mercantile  guilds  which  were  the  evidence 
of  the  town's  mediaeval  prosperity. 

For  some  years  in  the  hands  of  the  charity 
trustees  and  Grammar  School  governors,  the 
Guildhall  had  fallen  into  a  neglected  state  and 
become  even  structurally  unsound.  In  1909, 
during  the  mayoralty  of  Mr.  George  Jebb  and 
at  his  instigation,  the  hall  was  thoroughly  ex- 
amined by  an  architect  on  behalf  of  the  Society 
for  the  Protection  of  Ancient  Buildings,  who  made 
recommendations  for  its  careful  restoration  at  an 
estimated  outlay  of  six  hundred  pounds;  and  in 
consequence  of  his  report,  and  also  of  the  pub- 
lic-spirited advocacy  of  Mr.  Jebb,  then  deputy- 
Mayor,  and  Mr.  Joseph  Cooke,  an  ex-Mayor  of 
the  borough,  supported  by  the  Mayor  for  the 
year,  Mr.  James  Eley,  it  was  decided  in  1911  to 
do  this  work  and  preserve  the  building  by  means 
of  a  town's  fund.  Happily  the  scheme  was 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 


carried  a  step  further  still,  and  completed  by 
the  generous  act  of  Mr.  Frank  Harrison  in  pro- 
viding the  purchase  money  for  the  hall,  a  sum 
of  five  hundred  pounds.  The  double  object  was 
thus  secured  of  the  restoration  and  preserva- 
tion of  the  building  and  its  return  to  the  cus- 
tody of  its  natural  and  proper  guardians,  the 
Corporation. 

This  landmark  of  Boston  for  nigh  five  hundred 
years,  relic  of  its  former  greatness,  possesses  a 
wonderfully  interesting  history.  Anciently  the 
hall  of  St.  Mary's  Guild,  it  is  a  rare  example 
of  early  Gothic  brickwork.  Guilds  played  an 
important  part  in  the  life  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Guild  companies  existing  in  Saxon  times  gave  a 
social  status  to  their  members,  but  after  the 
Conquest  the  guilds  became  trading  or  religious 
bodies  or  simply  friendly  associations.  The 
object  generally  seems  to  have  been  the  promo- 
tion by  union  of  the  good  of  the  whole  member- 
ship. Boston,  as  became  its  mediaeval  activity, 
was  well  supplied  with  guilds;  there  were  six 
principal  guilds  in  the  town,  and  the  chief  of 
them  all  and  the  earliest  in  date,  though  not 
the  first  to  be  incorporated,  was  the  Guild  of 
the  Blessed  Mary.  This  was  founded  by  some 
merchants  in  1260,  but  was  only  incorporated 
in  1 393  on  the  petition  of  Anne  of  Bohemia,  the 
Queen  of  Richard  II,  whose  head,  as  we  have 
seen  (in  Chapter  I.  and  subsequently),  is  carved 
on  the  miserere  bracket  under  a  stall  in  Boston 
Church,  no  doubt  in  commemoration  of  this 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


event.  The  Guild  presumably  built,  and  cer- 
tainly maintained,  the  Chapel  of  Our  Lady, 
called  the  "Scala  Coelia,"  or  ladder  of  heaven, 
which  occupied  the  two  eastern  bays  of  the  south 
aisle  and  was  screened  off,  the  western  screen 
being  crowned  by  a  loft.  Pope  Sixtus  IV. 
granted  sundry  privileges  to  the  brethren  and 
sisters  of  the  Guild  in  1475,  and,  as  already 
told,  it  also  obtained,  in  a  peculiar  way,  other 
indulgences  from  Pope  Julius  II.  in  1510. 
Though  the  Guild  had  its  Chapel  in  St.  Botolph's, 
it  does  not  appear  to  have  owned  any  property 
at  its  foundation,  although  it  distributed  a 
thousand  loaves  of  wheaten  bread  and  a  thou- 
sand herrings  to  the  poor  annually  on  the  feast 
of  Purification.  Two  priests  were  on  the  original 
foundation. 

The  present  hall,  which  may  have  succeeded 
an  earlier  one,  was  built  after  the  incorporation 
of  the  Guild,  which  at  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century  had  coming  in  about  three 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year,  a  sum  then 
equal  in  purchasing  power  to  ten  or  twelve  times 
the  present  amount.  Nearly  half  this  revenue 
was  derived  from  rents,  and  the  remainder  from 
legacies,  subscriptions,  and  donations.  The  in- 
come of  the  Guild  was  expended  in  maintaining 
seven  priests,  twelve  choristers,  and  thirteen 
bedesmen  (who  lived  in  houses  in  Bedesmen's 
Lane  at  the  back  of  the  Guildhall),  and  in  carry- 
ing on  the  Grammar  School,  the  master  of  which 
was  allowed  nine  pounds  per  annum  and  eight 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS 

and  fourpence  for  his  clothing.  By  1520  the 
receipts  of  the  Guild  had  increased  to  five  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  pounds,  quite  a  vast  sum 
in  those  days. 

The  wealth  of  the  Guild  of  St.  Mary  is  shown 
by  its  goods  as  enumerated  in  the  inventory,  now 
in  the  hands  of  the  Corporation,  taken  in  1534. 
The  record  is  a  parchment  roll  nine  feet  long, 
closely  written  on  both  sides!  According  to 
this  stock-taking  St.  Mary's  House  or  Hall  con- 
tained a  table  of  alabaster  two  yards  in  length, 
with  altar  cloths  and  vestments,  pix,  bells,  and 
candlesticks;  also  an  image  of  Our  Lady  made 
of  wood,  standing  in  a  tabernacle,  and  a  smaller 
image  of  Our  Lady  fashioned  in  alabaster;  to- 
gether with  a  printed  mass-book  with  the  "Mass 
of  Saynt  Botulph  wrytten  at  the  ende  of  ytt." 
Many  books  are  described,  and  in  the  "  Re- 
vestry  e,"  or  vestry,  were  certain  sacred  relics, 
fingers  and  bones  of  saints  and  other  treasures, 
enclosed  in  precious  metal,  and  numerous 
articles  of  silver  and  gilt,  the  total  weight  of  the 
"jewels"  being  over  a  thousand  ounces.  Costly 
vestments  and  various  paraphernalia  were  also 
in  the  collection.  In  the  hall  were  "five  candle- 
stykes  hyngynge  like  potts,"  whereof  the  largest 
had  five  branches  and  each  of  the  others  three. 
There  were  eight  tables  on  the  north  side  of  the 
hall,  joined  and  nailed  to  the  tressels,  and  seven 
on  the  south  side  similarly  arranged,  with  twelve 
forms  placed  by  the  sides  of  the  tables,  and  three 
tables  and  as  many  forms  in  the  chapel  chamber. 


=7/fi  ' 


234    THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 

A  great  quantity  of  table  linen  is  mentioned: 
the  tablecloths  were  six,  seven,  and  even  nine 
yards  long.  The  brass  pots,  pans,  and  kettles 
used  in  the  kitchens  weighed  ten  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds,  and  the  pewter  and  laten  ware  was 
half  that  weight.  The  three  "greatt  broches 
[spits]  of  yron"  were  each  three  and  a  half 
yards  long.  A  beam  of  iron  had  four  leaden 
weights.  These  things  were  in  the  hall  kitchen. 
A  "lower  kitchen"  contained,  among  other 
utensils,  a  huge  vessel  of  lead,  "a  grete  cage 
wherein  to  put  pullen  [poultry],  a  sowe  [large 
tub],  13  ale  tubs  and  20  ale  potts."  These 
details  indicate  that  the  members  of  the  Guild, 
whatever  else  they  did,  fared  well  and  often, 
and  in  their  way  had  as  great  a  relish  for  the 
good  things  of  life  as  had  Pope  Julius,  that 
"greedy  cormorant"  for  whose  "holy  tooth," 
which  delighted  in  "new  fangled  strange  deli- 
cates  and  dainty  dishes,"  Cromwell  and  his 
Boston  men  prepared  their  "gelly  junkets"  and 
got  the  "jolly  pardons"  in  exchange. 

But  bad  days  were  in  store  for  the  Guild, 
which  lost  all  its  belongings.  To  make  amends 
to  Boston  for  the  injury  he  had  done  it  by  dis- 
solving the  religious  houses,  Henry  VIII.  in  1545 
raised  the  town  to  the  rank  of  a  free  borough, 
gave  it  a  charter  of  incorporation,  and  granted 
it  several  privileges;  and,  in  consideration  of 
the  payment  of  sixteen  hundred  and  forty- 
six  pounds,  made  over  to  it,  among  other 
plunder,  the  lands  and  buildings  of  the  friaries 


- ' 


Photographed  from  the  Boston  Corporation  Record  Book 

RECORD  OF  FIRST  MEETING  OF  THE  BOSTON  CORPORATION  UNDER 
HENRY  VIIFs  CHARTER,  ON  JUNE  i,   1545 


When  Nicholas  Robertson  was  elected  Mayor,  the  twelve  Aldermen  were  sworn  in, 
Richard  Goodyng  took  the  oath  as  Recorder,  his  yearly  fee  being  £6—13—4,  Qnd  George 
Forster  was  chosen  Town  Clerk,  at  an  annual  salary  of  £3-6-8. 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    235 

and  the  property  owned  by  certain  abbeys  and 
monasteries  in  Boston,  together  with  the  pos- 
sessions of  the  lately  attainted  Lord  Hussey, 
including  Hussey  Tower.  Next  year  the  Guild 
of  St.  Mary  surrendered  to  the  Corporation. 

King  Henry  died  shortly  after,  and  the  ad- 
venturers who  surrounded  his  successor  declined 
to  recognise  the  surrender  of  the  Guild  because, 
they  said,  the  incidental  maintenance  of  clergy 
made  the  whole  of  its  expenditure  liable  to  the 
taint  of  superstitious  uses.  This  was  a  pretext 
on  which  the  young  King  Edward  was  made  to 
confiscate  all  the  Guild's  property  and  give  it 
to  William  Parr,  brother  of  the  Queen  Dowager, 
who  was  created  Earl  of  Essex  and  Marquess  of 
Northampton. 

Vengeance  followed  swift  upon  this  evil  deed. 
The  king  died  in  1553,  and  Lord  Northampton, 
for  being  concerned  in  the  conspiracy  to  put 
Lady  Jane  Grey  on  the  throne,  was  attainted 
of  high  treason  and  his  estate  forfeited  to  the 
Crown.  The  goods  stolen  from  Boston  were 
wasted  and  gone,  but  the  lands,  together  with 
lands  seized  from  other  guilds,  and  of  course  the 
Guildhall,  were  restored  by  the  charter  of  Philip 
and  Mary  in  1554  and  vested  in  the  Corpo- 
ration, on  trust  for  certain  purposes,  which 
included  the  maintenance  of  two  priests  (the 
Vicar  and  the  Lecturer),  provided  for  the  resus- 
citation of  the  Grammar  School  (which  after 
an  existence  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  be- 
fore its  suppression  under  Edward  VI.  was  thus 


n 

A 


THE  ROMANTIC  STORY  OF 


revived,  though  it  was  not  actually  reopened 
till  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth),  and  directed 
the  maintenance  of  four  bedesmen  who  were  to 
pray  in  Boston  Church  "for  ever,  for  the  good 
and  prosperous  state  of  the  Queen  whilst  living, 
and  for  her  and  her  ancestors'  souls  after  her 
decease";  a  duty  which,  it  is  much  to  be  feared, 
has  been  sadly  neglected  in  later  times. 

The  Guildhall  was  thereafter  used  by  the 
Corporation  for  its  meetings,  and  it  has  since 
continued  to  be  closely  linked  with  the  public 
affairs  and  the  social  life  of  Boston.  Here  John 
Cotton  attended  the  "great  feasts  of  the  town," 
and  here  civic  entertainments  and  the  balls 
given  by  members  of  Parliament  were  held  until 
1822,  when  the  Assembly-rooms  were  built  in 
the  Market-place.  Here  Recorder  Bellingham 
and  his  predecessors  and  successors  sat  at  the 
Quarter  Sessions  from  1545  to  1836:  the  Guild- 
hall court-room  where  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  faced 
the  Justices  was  stripped  of  its  fittings  only  in 
1878.  And  here,  in  the  old  Council  Chamber, 
the  mayors  of  Boston  were  always  made  from 
the  date  of  incorporation  down  to  1887. 

The  Corporation  ceased  to  meet  for  ordinary 
business  in  this  building  in  1835,  on  the  passing 
of  the  Municipal  Reform  Bill,  when  the  charities 
they  administered  were  turned  over  to  the 
charity  trustees,  who  took  possession  of  the 
Guildhall.  Perhaps  it  was  as  well  they  did  so, 
for  the  reformed  Corporation  did  not  scruple  to 
sell  the  town  regalia  and  plate,  and  they  would 


THE  PURITAN  FATHERS    237 


probably  have  sold  the  Guildhall  too  had  a 
tempting  offer  come  along.  Happily  they  never 
had  that  opportunity. 

A  better  spirit  now  prevails,  and  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  Guildhall,  with  its  long  past  and 
memorable  associations,  restored  alike  in  its 
fabric  and  in  its  ownership,  will  be  faithfully 
preserved  and  safeguarded  as  being,  next  to  the 
church,  the  most  venerable  and  historic  and  in 
every  way  interesting  building  in  Old  Boston. 


Boston.  Guild  of  St.  Mary  and  the 
Guildhall,    7,    12-13,    80,    94, 


199-200,  227,  230-237 

—  Grammar    School,    13,    89, 


"Abigail,"  The,  18 
Adams,  Charles  F.,  176 
Adams,  John,  166 
Adams,  John  Quincy,  166 
Addington,  Israel,  104 
Alexander,  Benjamin,  29,  37 
Allen,  Matthew,  109 
"Ambrose,"  The,  21 
Anderson,  Mr.,  Merchant,  104 
Anderson,  Mr.  Banks,  211-213 
Anne  of  Bohemia,  7-8,  23 1 
"Arabella,"  The,  20,  21,  27,  28 
Armstead,  William,  37 
Audley,  Christopher,  145-146 

Bacon,  Sir  Nathaniel,  1 1 1 
Banks,  Sir  Joseph,  12 
Barefoot,  Thomas,  63,  64 
Barkham,  Sir  Edward,  1 1 1 
Barlow,  Bishop,  32-33 
Baron,  Peter,  33 
Bawtree,  Leonard,  56  58,  64 
Bayard,  Hon.  T.  F.,  191-195 
Bedford,  William,  190,  191 
Bellingham,  Francis,  106 
Bellingham,  John,  162 
Bellingham,  Richard,  28,  64,  73, 
106-108,    in,    120,    121,    123, 

137.    138-139,    141.    142,    143. 
161,   162-164,  236 

Bellingham,  Samuel,  162 

Bennett,  Mr.,  63 

Blenkin,  Canon  G.  B.,  186-187, 
189,  196,  218 

Boleyn,  Anne,  8,  89,  224 

Boleyn,  Sir  Thomas,  8 

Boston,  Lincolnshire,  1-18,  23, 
25-30,  32-37,  43-45,  49,  55~ 
64,  68,  73,  75,  78,  80,  85-99, 
104-111,  113,  117,  135,  136, 
141-142,  145-148,  167,  168, 
181-206,  209-237 

St.  Botolph's  Church,  4,  5, 
8,  14,  85-93,  137,  182,  185-189, 
196,  199-202,  209-230 


191,  200,  214,  215,  230,  235 
—  Old  Town  Gaol,  1 2,  90 
Market  Place,  12,  93,  136, 


141 


Hussey  Tower,  13,  235 

St    John's    Church,   13,  93 

Old  Vicarage,  91,  216 

Old  Church  House,  92 

Pacy  House,  92 

Town  bridge,  93 

House  of  Assembly,  94 

Boston,  Massachusetts,  7,  9, 
22-25,  29,  74,  88,  109,  112- 
144,  151-177,  181-182,  185- 
206,  221 

King's  Chapel,  24,  152,  161, 


174 


First  Church,  136-137,  153, 
175-177,      188-190,      197-198, 

221 

Old  South  Church,  174 

Christ  Church,  174 

Trinity    Church,     174-175, 

187-188,  197 

Bradford,  William,  10,  115 
Bradstreet,  Dorothy,  151,  152 
Bradstreet,    Simon,    27,    35,    73, 

141,  165 
Brewster,    William,    10,    II,    12, 

115,    125 

Bright,  Francis,  19 
Britton,  Mr.,  131 
Brooks,  John  Cotton,  201 
Brooks,  Rev.  Phillips,  187,  196, 

197-198,  201 

Browne,  Abraham,  56,  63,  64 
Browne,  Dr.  Thomas,  211 
Burgess,  Dr.  John,  35 
Burke,   Edmund,    181 
Byfield,  Nathaniel,  165 


INDEX 


Calthrop,  John,  215-216,  228 
Calvin,  John,  33,  34,  36,  38,  92, 

177 

Cambridge,  Mass.,  109,  152 
Cambridge  University,  England, 

30-33 

Camden,  95 
Carlyle,  160 

Chadwick,  Rev.  John  White,  143 
Charles  I,  112,  120 
Charles  II,  164,  213 
Charlestown,  Mass.,  18,  22,  27 
Chelmsford,  109 

"Chillingworth,  Roger,"  140,  144 
Clark,  John,  161 
Coddington,  Samuel,  215 
Coddington,  William,  18,  27,  108, 

165-166 

Coney,  John,  80,  81,    152 
Coney,  Mary  Cotton,  80,   152 
Coney,  Thomas,  61,  62-64,  80- 

81,   152 

Cooke,  Dr.  Elisha,  165 
Cooke,  Joseph,  230 
Cotton,  Elizabeth,  152 
Cotton,  Elizabeth  Horrocks,  51, 

75 

Cotton,  John  (i),  18,  20-21,  23, 
27,  28-35,  37,  38,  43-52,  61, 
63-64,  67-73,  74-93,  95-96, 
98,  103-106,  108,  no,  112, 
113-124,  126,  128,  136,  139, 
140,  142,  151-161,  166,  168, 
171,  172,  174,  175-177,  185- 
186,  188,  189,  196,  197-198, 

2OO,    2OI,    2O9,    2l6,    2l8,    221, 
236 

Cotton,  John  (2),  151,  152 
Cotton,     Maria,     (see     Mather, 

Maria  Cotton) 
Cotton,  Mary,  (see  Coney,  Mary 

Cotton) 

Cotton,  Roland  (i),  30 
Cotton,  Roland  (2),  139,  151 
Cotton,  Sarah,   139,   151 
Cotton,  Sarah  Story,  75,  81,  94, 

103,  151,  152,  154 
Cotton,  Seaborn,  103,  151,  152 
Craven,  Robert,  212 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  8,  28,  51,  62, 

112,  124,  168,  210,  227 
Cromwell,  Sir  Richard,  8 
Cromwell,  Thomas,  8,  9,  224 

Davenport,  John,  81 
Davis,  Thomas,  165 


Derby,  30 

"Dimmesdale,  Arthur,"  137-145, 

185 

Dineley,  Family,    25,  222,  224 
Dod,  John,  76 

Dorchester,  Mass.,  no,  114,  154 
Dorset,  Lord,  77 
Dudley,  Anne,  165 
Dudley,  Paul,  165 
Dudley,  Thomas,  17,  18,  21,  22, 

23,  27,  28,  73,  74,  1 14,  121,  122, 

141,  160,  165,  185 
Dunning,  Rev.  Dr.,   195,   198 

Earle,  George,  37 

Edward  IV,  98 

Edward  VI,  235 

Egginton,  Jeremiah,  152 

Eley,  James,  230 

Eliot,  John,  24,    151 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  37,  62,  95,  98, 

145,  148,  236 
Ellis,  Dr.  Rufus,   172,    188-189, 

190 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,   15.7 
Endicott,  John,  18,  115,  141,  160 
Everett,  William,   185 

Fawsley,  76 
Ferrers,  Nicholas,  68 
Fiennes,  Lady  Arabella  (see 

Johnson,  Lady  Arabella) 
Fiennes,  Charles,  21 
Fiennes,  Harrington,  26 
Fiennes,  Sir  Henry,  26 
Firmin,  Mr.,  116 
Fisher,  Anne  (see  Leverett,  Ann 

Fisher) 

"  Four  Sisters,"  The,  19 
Fox,  Alderman,  78 
Fox,  George,  212 
Frothingham,  Dr.    Nathaniel    L. 

136,  153 
Frothingham,  Rev.  Paul  Revere, 

156,  176 
Fuller,  Samuel,   115,   166 

Gager,  Deacon,  24 
"George,"  The,  19 
George,  David,  130 
Goddard,  Archdeacon,  87 
Goe,  Bartholomew,  217-218,  225 
Goodrick  Family,  106 
Gorges,  John,  25 
Gorton,  Samuel,  130 


INDEX 


241 


"Griffin,"  The,   81-82,  104-106, 
109,  no,  113 

Hackford,  Mr.,  190 
Hallam,  Henry,  173,  224 
Harrison,  Frank,  231 
Hartford,  Conn.,  109 
Haven,  Samuel  Foster,  29 
Hawthorne,   Nathaniel,  24,   108, 

I35-I45.   164,   185,   195 
Haynes,  John,  109,  121,  122,  125, 

1 66 

Henry  VIII,  8,  13,  120,  234-235 
Henry,  Matthew,  50 
Henry,  Philip,  50-51 
Herbert,  George,  82 
"Hereward  the  Wake,"  4,  183- 

184 

Heygate,  Canon,  218 
Hibbins,  Anne,  143,  163-164 
Hibbins,  William,  143 
Hicks,  Jasper,  37 
Higginson,  Francis,  19,  24 
Hill,  William,  58 
Holland,  Sir  Thomas,  7 
Hooker,    Rev.  Thomas,   73,   76, 

109,  113,  122,  166 
Hooper,  Master,  73 
Hope,  Beresford,  218 
Hopkins,  Oceanus,  103 
Hopkins,  Stephen,  103 
Horbling,  27,  35,  73 
Horrocks,  Elizabeth,  (see  Cotton, 

Elizabeth  Horrocks) 
Horrocks,  Rev.  James,  51 
Hough,  Ann  Rainsford,  161 
Hough,  Atherton  (i),  28,  61-62, 

73,  81,   105,   141,   161-162 
Hough,  Atherton  (2),   161 
Hough,  Elizabeth  Whettingham, 

105-106,  161 

Hough,  Samuel  (i),  105,  106,  161 
Hough,  Samuel  (2),  161 
Hough,  Samuel  (3),  161 
Hough,  Sarah  Symmes,  161 
How,  John,  51 

Howe,  Obadiah,  213-214,  217,  227 
Hubbard,  John,  165 
Hudson,  Hannah,  (see  Leverett, 

Hannah  Hudson) 
Hume,  173 

Humphrey,  John,  25,  73 
Humphrey,  Lady  Susanna,  25 
Hussey,  Lord,  13,  235 
Hutchinson,  Anne,  108,  123,  126- 

127,  156,  165,  166 


Hutchinson,  Edward  (i),   108 
Hutchinson,    Edward    (2),    108- 

109,  166 

Hutchinson,  Richard,  108 
Hutchinson,  Thomas,  166-167 
Hutchinson,    William,    108,    166 
Hutchinson's  History  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 79,  1 06,  109 
Hutton,  Robert,  26 

Ingelow,  Jean,  95 
Ingoldsby,  Anthony,  59 
Ingram,  Herbert,  217 
Ipswich,  Mass.,  121 
Irby,  Anthony,  56,  58,  64 

James  I,  35,  55,  68,  112,  138 

James,  Thomas,  27 

Jebb,  George,  230 

Jenkinson,  John,  6l 

"Jewel,"  The,  21 

John,  King,  5,  97 

Johnson,  Lady  Arabella,  19,  21, 

22,  23,  24,  25,  114 
Johnson,  Isaac,  18,  19,  23,  24-25, 

73,  74,  1 14 
Julius  II,  Pope,  9,  232,  234 

Keayne,  Robert,  131 
Kelsall,  Edward,  214-215 
Kemble,  Captain,  131 
Kingsley,  Charles,  183 
Kirkstead,  26 
Knox,  177 

Kyme,  Anthony,  147 
Kyme,  William,  147 

Lambe,  Sir  John,  35 

Lane,  Hon.  Jonathan  A.,  198-199 

Laney,  Dr.,  69 

Laud,  Archbishop,  77,  87,   145, 

168,  170,  210 

Lawrence,  Bishop,  200-201 
Leland,  89,  98,  214 
Leverett,  Anne  (i),  104 
Leverett,  Anne  (2),  165 
Leverett,  Anne  Fisher,  104,  161 
Leverett,  Elizabeth,  165 
Leverett,  Hannah,  165 
Leverett,  Hannah  Hudson,  104, 

164 

Leverett,  Hudson,  164 
Leverett,  Jane,  104 
Leverett,  John  (i),  28,  108,  164- 

165 


INDEX 


Leverett,  John   (2),   165 
Leverett,  Mary,  165 
Leverett,  Rebecca,  165 
Leverett,  Sarah,  165 
Leverett,  Thomas,  28,  52,  73,  75, 

81,   104-105,    116,    161,    164 
Lewis,  David,  56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63 
Leyden,  n 
Lincoln,  35,  43,  98 
Lincoln,   Bridget,    Countess    of, 

18,  21 
Lincoln,  Theophilus  Clinton,  Earl 

of,  18,  19,  21,  25,  73,  75,  81, 

112,  222 

"Lion's  Whelp,"  The,  19 
Littlebury,  Humphrey,  98 
Lloyd,  James,  165 
Longfellow,    Henry    Wadsworth, 

159,    184 

Luther,  Martin,  177 
Lynn,  Mass.,  113,  167 
Lynne,  Henry,  131 

Macaulay,  170 

Marbury,    Anne,    (see    Hutchin- 

son,  Anne) 

Marbury,  Rev.  William,  108 
Masham,  Sir  William,  73 
Mather,  Cotton,  28,  29,  152,  171 
Mather,  Increase,   152,   154,   174 
Mather,   Maria   Cotton,    152 
Mather,  Richard,  154 
Mather,  Samuel,  152 
"Mayflower,"  The,  n,  19 
Melton,  Richard,  9 
Middlecott,  Sir  Thomas,  56-60, 

64,  80 

Morland,  Henry,  214 
Mountain,  Dr.,  69-70 

Narragansett  Bay,  125 
Neile,  Bishop,  43-51,  55 
Norton,  John,  171 
Norton's    "Life    and    Death    of 
Cotton,"  79,  1 20 

Ogle,  John  Furness,  217-218 

Pacy,  Family,  92 
Palmer,  Edward,  131 
Park,  Rev.  Charles  E.,  176 
Parrowe,  Mr.,  37 
Partridge,  Samuel,  216-217 
Pel  ham,  Herbert,  162 
Pelham,  Penelope,  162 
Perkins,  William,  31 


Peters,  Hugh,  121,  122,  124,  125 
Philip  and  Mary,  12,  78,  235 
Phillips,  George,  27 
Pierce,  William,  109 
Plymouth,  Mass.,  10,  n,  17,  18, 

23,   24,    115,    125,    130,    151 
Pond,  Mr.,  79 
"  Prosperous,"  The,  25-27 
Providence,  R.  I.,  130 
"Prynne,  Hester,"  135-144,  147, 

185 
Prynne,  William,    144-145 

Quincy,   Edmund   (i),    108,    166 
Quincy,   Edmund   (2),    166 
Quincy,  Josiah,  Jr.,   166 

Rainsford,  Ann,  161 
Ratcliffe,  Philip,  131 
Ratcliffe,  Robert,  174 
Rayson,  Marmaduke,  26-27 
Revere,  Paul,  174 
Reynolds,   Rev.  Grindall,   154 
Richard  II,  7,  231 
Rigby,  John,  215 
Robinson,  John,  20 

Salem,  Mass.,  22,  23,  24,  27,  1 14, 
125,  131,  165,  185 

Saltonstall,  Sir  Richard,  28,   74 

Sarpi,  74 

Say  and  Sele,  Lord,  21,  28,  119 

"Scarlet  Letter,"  The  (see  Haw- 
thorne, Nathaniel) 

Sedgwick,  Sarah,  164 

Sempringham  Manor  House,  18, 

73.  74 

Shawmut,  (see  Boston,  Massa- 
chusetts) 

Shinn,  Rev.  George  W.,  201-202 

Sixtus  IV,  Pope,  232 

Skelton,  Samuel,    19,   27 

Skirbeck,  10,  35,  in,  112,  113, 
167 

Smith,    Nicholas,    29,    33,    88, 

Smith,  Richard,  87 

Some,  Dr.,  31 

St.  Botolph's  Town,  Lincoln- 
shire (see  Boston,  Lincoln- 
shire) 

Stephenson,  Canon,  196-197,  218 

St.  John,  Elizabeth  (see  Whiting, 
Elizabeth  St.  John) 

St.  John,  Oliver,  112 

Stone,  Rev.  Samuel,  109,  113,  166 


INDEX 


Story,  Sarah  (see  Cotton,  Sarah 

Story) 

Symmes,  Sarah,  161 
Symmes,  Rev.  Zechariah,  101 

"Talbot,"  The,  19,  21 

Talbye,  Dorothy,  131 

Tattershall,  Castle,  18,  73,  74,  75 

Tennyson,  Lord,  184-185 

Thorns,  Mayor,  189 

Tilney,  Dame  Margery,  8,  89, 
220,  224 

Tomlinson,  John,  86 

Townsend,  Penn,  165 

Trimountain  (see  Boston,  Massa- 
chusetts) 

Truestdale,  John,  220 

Tuckney,  Dr.  Anthony,  81,  87, 
in,  209-211,  213 

Tyler,  Professor,  158 

Underhill,  Captain,  125-126 

Vane,  Sir  Henry,   121-124,   125, 

126,   165,  212 
Vasyn,  Jeremiah,  112 

Wade,  Prudence,  151 
Ward,  Nathaniel,  121 
Ward,  Samuel,  68 
Warwick,  Earl  of,   28 
Westland,  Richard,  58,  III 
Wheelwright,  Rev.  John,  108 
White,  John,  18 

Whiting,  Mr.   (Biographer),  79 
Whiting,  Elizabeth  St.  John,  112, 
167 


Whiting,  Esther,   167 

Whiting,  James  (i),  in 

Whiting,  James,  (2),  167 

Whiting,  John  (i),  no 

Whiting,  John  (2),  no 

Whiting,  John  (3),  iio-ni 

Whiting,  John  (4),  167 

Whiting,  Mary,  211 

Whiting,  Robert,  in 

Whiting,  Rev.  Samuel  (i),  uo- 
112,  167 

Whiting,   Rev.  Samuel   (2),    167 

Whiting,  William,  167 

Whittingham,  Elizabeth  (see 
Hough,  Elizabeth  Whitting- 
ham) 

Williams,  John,  68-71,  80,  93 

Williams,  Richard,  (see  Crom- 
well, Sir  Richard) 

Williams,  Roger,  18,  73-74,  115, 
123,  124-125,  130,  155,  156 

Wilson,  John,  23-24,  115,  116, 
122,  123,  126,  127,  131,  137, 

138,  139,  142,  153-154,  161 
Winthrop,  Henry,  24,  114 
Winthrop,  John   (i),    18-24,  27, 

74,    103,    106,    109,    no,    114- 
116,   121,   122,   123,   124,   125, 

139,  140,    153,    155,    160-161, 
162,  165,  175,  177,  185 

Winthrop,  John  (2),  161 
Winthrop,   Hon.   Robert  C.,   22 
Wool,  Thomas,  29,  35,  36,  37 
Worship,  Dr.,  63 
Worshippe,  James,  37 
Wright,  Edward,  81 
Wright,  Samuel,  37 


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